Here's what's funny. I don't remember what my husband and I did on New Year's Eve. I suppose we were at the ski house one year, or went to some party, maybe just stayed home. The point is: It doesn't matter what you do when you're married. Because you're married.

I do remember my husband's friend telling me her parents always played tennis on New Year's Eve. They reserved an indoor tennis court, played doubles with their best friends, then broke out chilled champagne and went home.

I was impressed. It sounded so civilized.

I don't remember what I did the first year after I was divorced. What I do remember of my dating years on New Year's Eve was anything but fun. I remember standing freezing in a slinky dress and high-heeled shoes, in slush in a New York street with my boyfriend, trying to catch a cab.

I remember another boyfriend, another time, getting caught between parties at midnight, trying to catch a cab.

Then there were the years I didn't have a boyfriend, plenty of them. Some years I gave a party, alone, and tried to get my guests to skip the kissing-at-midnight part. One year I stayed home alone, and got a surprise midnight phone call from a drunk-dialing ex-boyfriend.

I eventually learned that the worst part of New Year's Eve in New York City is transportation, so that eliminated going to the West Village or Soho, and forget about Brooklyn or the Bronx.

So I went (alone) to parties on the Upper West Side, walking distance, and tried to leave before the midnight kissing part.

My favorite neighborhood party was at a Victorian house near Central Park. The host was a college professor, the wife a painter. The guests were smart, funny, older, knew how to drink without getting drunk. Many of them abstained until midnight, at which point they stripped down to running clothes and hit Central Park for the four-mile road race.

I’m as traditional and nostalgic as anyone, and a damn fine cook. But even though l love setting a beautiful table, and making Thanksgiving dinner, my Thanksgivings have been a series of unpleasant experiences. When I think back, this is what I remember:

● I was a child at my grandmother’s house in Minnesota. The uncles hung out in the living room, watching TV. The aunts worked in the overheated kitchen. My mom and dad both came from families of seven, so there were lots of aunts and uncles and cousins, only one of whom went to prison, later, for killing his stepfather. The Thanksgiving meal was served, with all of its strangeness: green and black olives, or that odd cylinder of cranberry. Dinner over, the Canadian Club whiskey would come out so the men could relax. The women cleaned up as my uncles, red-faced and swearing, played poker at the kitchen table. They were loud and scary and we were devout Methodists, who didn’t believe in drinking, smoking, gambling, dancing or going to see movies (except The Ten Commandments). The aunts, armed with leftovers and sleepy children, had to drag the men away. Result: Fear of drunken uncles, fear of drunks.

● I was older, a teenager, and I helped my mother at her grocery store, open seven days a week, 12 hours a day, except for Christmas Day. We closed on Thanksgiving, too, but only between noon and four. Thanksgiving meant racing back and forth between the store and the house, tending the turkey, making sure the house hadn’t burned down. My half-brother, brother, uncle, dad, mom and I would eat around 3. Then we’d race back and open the store, so other people could get ice cream, sugar, pickled herring, coffee, pies, Tampax... whatever it was all those Scandinavians needed for Thanksgiving. Result: Class resentment.