Midnight pancakes...

Someone at work asked me what I do to celebrate New Year's Eve. For many years, when I had teenagers at home, they and their friends seemed to gather at our small but welcoming house. I learned to love the sound of happy chatter, competitive games and twenty people calling me Mom at the same time. 

For some reason, it became a tradition that at the stroke of midnight, I started cooking a huge batch of pancakes, smothered with real butter and luscious streams of maple syrup. Nobody ever objected. I started out with small ones, about the size of a silver dollar, so everybody could get a first taste. Then I made regular ones until everybody was stuffed.