Thanksgiving Eve

Someone once said to me that with the exception of sex, there is only one thing that makes him want to go to sleep immediately upon completion. And that, is the completion of the Thanksgiving meal. Amen.

Thanksgiving is a very special holiday to me. And, Thanksgiving's specialness has nothing to do with the turkey, the stuffing, or the act of being thankful for the positives in my life. No. For me, Thanksgiving's splendor has everything to do with the night before Thanksgiving. I am thankful for Thanksgiving Eve, or what I like to call, the greatest night of my life.

For years, the tradition in Livingston, New Jersey, was that once your graduating class had turned twenty-one you would join in the ranks of attending Houlihans the night before Thanksgiving. This right of passage was a magical tradition. I still remember my first Houlihans back in November of 2005. Though, we were seniors in college, once we stepped foot into Houlihans, we had transformed back into highschool "freshman." Standing in our corner of the bar, we saw the "sophomores" to our left. The "juniors" were right across the way, and the "seniors "were next to them. Any super-senior or above was in a different section of the bar. Thanksgiving Eve was the one night of the year that you were guaranteed to see your 10th grade lab partner, your senior-when you were a freshman-crush, and any person who you ever had any sort of sexual history with. And, yes. There was a lot of history in that room. Oh, the glory!

I had four magical years at Houlihans, as I myself moved up the ranks, and watched as the younger classes came in to experience the magic. In the fall of 2009 during the treacherous economic recession, Houlihans was hit hard, was subsequently closed, and thus, a tradition died. And we, (and by we, I do mean I) was never the same again. (An aside: For the exception of my birthday and 9-02-10 day, I have never received more phone calls, text messages, and e-mails then I did on the day that Houlihans closed). Houlihans was my Christmas.

I am very lucky that my highschool class has remained friends, almost nine years later. No, I am not saying that all 358 of us are best friends and spend every weekend together. But, a large percentage of us live in New York City, and many of us are still friends. (And, thanks to facebook I know what the others are up to). Livingston High School, in New York City, we are everywhere. I run into you on the subway, at the gym, and on street corners at 6:55 am on a Monday morning. (I once walked down a quiet NYC block, and the only other person walking on the street was a boy who graduated a year before me from LHS).

I am quite good at keeping in touch with people. This is why I have some of the same friends since I was small. But, what I truly loved about Houlihans was seeing the random people who I had lost track of. That is my bread and butter. This Thanksgiving, without Houlihans, we tried to settle for the next best thing. We crammed ourselves into a different bar, called the Landmark.
The Landmark is about 1/16th the size of Houlihans, and thus this plan did not quite work out as well as I'd imagined. However, some of the people that I spotted inside the Landmark helped satisfy my cravings for my own personal history and nostalgia. From chatting with my 1st-5th grade crush, (Let's just call him Stanley) to catching up with the underclassmen who played on my lacrosse team. I kind of loved everything about being in this crowded room of people who all share a common background. I loved being apart of this culture, that knows what "the oval" is, being around people who once had to carry around a ten pound flour baby for health class, and who once began their mornings with AM Wired. This Thanksgiving, I give thanks to Thanksgiving Eve, for humoring me; and allowing me the chance to revel in my own nostalgia.