THREE TWO ONE

Dear Spike:

I’ve counted down the final seconds of the year at a ecstasy-fueled rave in new Jerusalem; at the historic Plaza de Zocodover in Toledo, Spain; slurping Irish coffees at the Buena Vista in San Francisco; at a lascivious Fiesta Bowl block party in Tempe, Arizona; and even on the comparatively quiet deck of an aircraft carrier in the northern Persian Gulf.

I’ve always been a fan of this night — of all the revelry and debauchery, of the goodbyes-to-that and the hellos-to-this, of regrets forgotten and promises made. Of the five-four-three-two-one and the kisses at midnight and that lovely old song that everyone knows the tune of but no one knows the words to.

But tonight is different. There’s no big apple falling from the sky. No fireworks. No tooting horns. No throngs of drunken revelers.

Not here.

Here it is just you and your mother and me. We’re watching Winnie the Pooh and waiting for a cherry pie to cool on the stovetop and trying to convince you that it’s OK to sleep for longer than 45 minutes at a time.

We had a couple of T-bone steaks for dinner — big, thick, juicy ones slathered with mushrooms and onions and whipped garlic butter. I drank the remaining half-glass from a cheap bottle of Merlot I opened for dinner the other night. You sucked on a graham cracker.

That was the extent of our celebration. And that was more than fine by me.

Maybe next year I’ll want to brave the crowds and bang the pans and watch the ball drop three-two-one-boom! Maybe then, midnight will find your mother and I locked in a kiss, surrounded by others locked in their own kisses. Maybe then, we’ll be in Rio or Paris or Prague.

Maybe.

For now, I’m simply reveling over a year that changed my life in more good ways than any other — a year that brought me you.

For now, I’m simply appreciating the best New Year’s ever.

Three. Two. One.

Boom.

Love,
dad

P.S. — No, I've never done ecstasy. No, you're not allowed to either.