Not the infamous Burning Man Festival, but closer and probably about as much fun.

By the time we start arriving around six it’s an inferno of which Dante would be proud.

 

Annually on New Year’s Eve my cousin Claudia and her husband John host a fête, a pot luck gathering that doesn’t mean just bring a dish and your own beverages, but also your Christmas tree. Preferably one you brought into your house, decorated, and barely watered so it is nice and dry for the event.

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People show up dressed for the weather, this year about 17 degrees, in warm boots and gloves, heavy coats that will probably have holes in them from flying cinders and be covered in ash the next day, and for some of the more mature of us a funny hat. Our family suffers from severe pyromania, and the youngest of the clan was only recently exposed and a tad timid. We told him it was in his blood. He manned up nicely.

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And the food everyone brings is always yummy. I brought BBQ pulled pork, Claudia made white chicken chili, our friend Casey made his Va Vo’s Cacoila (his Portuguese Grandmother’s version of pulled pork with garlic and paprika), and others brought meatballs, savory cheesecake, crab dip, guacamole, pot stickers, kielbasa with dipping sauce, veggie platters and more. And there were raisin tarts, chocolate bark, cookies, and pies for dessert. People graze, go out to the fire, come in to get another bite to eat, socialize in and outside and use the deck as one big refrigerator for the beverages.

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By the time John steps back most of them will be engulfed in flames and going up, well, like a Christmas tree.

The main attraction is the bonfire. John and his father-in-law Roger start the fire around noontime to really get it going. By the time we start arriving around six it’s an inferno of which Dante would be proud. Several years ago John created a permanent upright tree holder for this annual bash, using a 5-inch iron pipe pounded into the ground and surrounded by concrete. All but the largest trees will slide into the holder and by the time John steps back most of them will be engulfed in flames and going up, well, like a Christmas tree.

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Cheers, hoots and hollers are de rigueur, more so as the evening progresses and the Champagne diminishes. Or in Casey’s instance Southern Comfort, which he imbibed from is “Flitten” or Flask-Mitten, an ingenious invention that allows him to keep his hands and his innards warm quite inconspicuously, especially where one might not usually drink. Like in line for a Black Friday sale at Walmart at 3AM.

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We burn trees all evening, with a grand finale at midnight, a countdown, toasts and hugs and Happy New Year all around. And then those of us who usually don’t stay up that late make our way home to our beds, smelling a tad smoky and with a singe mark or two. New York City on New Year’s Eve? Nah, we’d rather burn Christmas trees in the woods of a coastal New England town.

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I’ll end this with a quote from the now infamous Casey, “May your best day in 2014 be your worst day in the New Year.”

God Bless Us, Every One!

Deborah