Grade A

I imagine that most people turn into a maniacal beasts around the new year trying to create the perfect night of party dresses, glitter, cleavage and champagne flutes while simultaneously vowing to stick to a strict yoga routine and hand-crank their own wheat-grass shots every morning before work for the following 365 days. I have painted this picture from what I know.

I decided to start 2012, my first full year in Virginia, a little differently. Even though creating resolutions is one of the most exciting traditions of the new year, the inevitability of breaking them is a depressing reminder of how poorly sculpted my willpower is. So I spent the week prior to the new year in Vermont with family and didn't write down or even think about a single resolution. I resolve nothing.

In fact, my snowy retreat was so mind-engulfing that I didn't even wonder if Occupy took a holiday break or if atheists were hired to assemble and decorate the Times Square Christmas Tree. Instead, I slept in a big house with old wallpaper and listen to my grandparents argue over patched socks. I laid in bed with a fever and listened to trees scratch the windows when the wind blew, and I could even feel the wind through the glass. I woke up to homemade pancakes cooked on a cast iron pan with four little permanent pancake shadows and I ate them with Vermont Grade A maple sugar. If you've never had delicate homemade pancakes with Vermont Grade A then you are missing a true delight.

I drove a full day to get back home just two hours before the new year struck. Exhausted and relieved to be home, I spent New Years under a pile of warm blankets next to a banjo player. I'd say that's a grade a start to a new year.