By JANET SILVER GHENT
When I was a teenager without a date for Dec. 31, the song “What Are You Doing New Year’s?” would set my misery into motion.
My very worst New Year’s Eve was spent as a 20-year-old student in London’s chilly Euston Station waiting for a train I thought my boyfriend was riding. He wasn’t. Coffee with a proverbial milk skin and Cockney shouts of “’Appy new year, luv!” magnified my melancholy.
I remember all too well other times I faced the prospect of a holiday alone.
Some 30 years ago, after a divorce and no place to go for Thanksgiving, I contemplated wallowing in sorrowful music. Think “All By Myself,” lifted from Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto. My children were celebrating with their father’s family. My brother and my parents were visiting cousins in New Hampshire.
Finally, I swallowed my pride, phoned old friends and scored an invitation. My hosts, in turn, asked if I could pick up their grandson from the Oakland airport, which was minutes from my home, so we both did mitzvahs.
Asking can be humbling as it involves admitting need. Yet humility is no shame. In fact, it is a soul trait in Mussar, the Jewish ethical tradition. That lesson came home to me in a children’s book I reviewed for this publication in the mid-1990s called “What Zeesie Saw on Delancey Street.”
Zeesie, a young girl in an immigrant neighborhood, attends her first “package party,” a community potluck. After dinner, she sneaks into the private “money room” in the back of the reception hall, expecting to find a treasure chest. While hiding, she discovers that the guests contribute to the money box or take what they need. Struck by the tears of a needy family friend, Zeesie adds her own gift money.
About 20 years ago, my second husband, Allen, and I decided to start hosting New Year’s Eve parties for folks who needed a place to celebrate.
We began by hiring a pianist and inviting dateless friends to join us in singing in the new year. Over the course of two decades, folks arrived solo, coupled or in groups. Some dressed in jeans, others wore holiday finery. Our only proviso: What comes in with you goes out with you, whether it’s your dip or your date.
Unfortunately, our event became a victim of its success. The growing guest list — with friends inviting friends — outgrew the size of our house.
At our last New Year’s Eve event in 2018, just weeks after we returned from a trip to Thailand, Allen was beset by what I thought was lingering jetlag. He slept while I put up the balloons, he slept while I arranged the food and drinks, and he slept during part of the party. After that experience, which turned out to be an electrolyte imbalance, I put that party to bed. I was done.
Yes, hosting is a mitzvah. Think of Abraham opening his tent to visitors. These days, when friends ask if we have room at our Thanksgiving or Passover table, we try to accommodate them. But there may come a point when we will need to recognize our limitations.
Such a recognition happened to my friend Kathy, who used to invite fellow choir members without plans to attend her Christmas dinner party. But a few years ago, Covid-19 and other considerations put an end to those open invitations. Now she and her husband enjoy Christmas dinner at a restaurant.
Fortunately, Allen and I have alternate plans for Dec. 25. His daughter includes us in her annual Christmas pajama party.
New Year’s Eve will be a different story. In our age bracket, big parties are a thing of the past.
This year we may spend the night at a San Francisco hotel and attend a cabaret performance, as we did a couple of years ago. Or we may toast 2025 at home with a glass of champagne. It doesn’t matter that much anymore.
On Feb. 13, Allen and I will celebrate the 25th anniversary of our wedding, which took place because a South Bay engineer answered my quirky ad in the then-Jewish Bulletin. Erev Valentine’s Day eclipses any New Year’s Eve for me.
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