Like many baby boomers, my childhood holiday memories are of a pine-and-cinnamon-scented living room orchestrated with the sounds of wrapping paper furiously being dispatched and a scratchy chorus of Alvin and the Chipmunks produced by an LP record surfing on a turntable. Specialty dishes and intricately decorated cookies, lovingly and painstakingly prepared by my mother, were central to the festivities. Even fruitcake had its charms.

But with the passage of parents and no children with whom to carry on family rituals, my husband and I have crafted a new tradition of year-end adventure travel.

Rather than deck the halls, we hit the road and have been rewarded with a Christmas morning in Queensland, Australia were the loud, hysterical call of a Kookaburra in a tree served as our alarm clock. At the turn of the millennium, we breathlessly hauled ourselves to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and squinted at the piercing light of the last sunrise of the 20th century. Another trip took us to the desert near Palm Springs, Calif. where the mountain shadows imbue a perpetual twilight tint to the valley floor.

The Routeburn Track, in New Zealand, holds comic memories of a rail-thin Australian hiker who bounded into the bunk-hut kitchen during breakfast wearing a moth-eaten Santa Claus suit (with no padding) and shouting, “Ho! Ho! Ho, mates! Have you all been good little boys and girls?”

While rewarded beyond our wildest expectations by these far-flung experiences, I do admit to pangs of nostalgia now and then for holiday foods. And one dish in particular.

Starting in my teen years, every New Year’s Eve dad prepared Lobster Thermidor, one of the few luxuries an auto mechanic’s salary permitted in our blue-collar household. What my brother and I didn’t know, but later came to appreciate, was dad’s ulterior motive in serving this delicacy. The man was the master of reverse psychology. Well aware of the kind of mischief teenagers can get into on New Year’s Eve, particularly in Los Angeles during the 1960s, he gave us a choice, “Go out with your friends or stay home, eat lobster, and sip champagne.” We chose the home fires.

Lobster Thermidor consists of lobster meat, tossed with thigh-busting bechamel sauce, returned to the shell, topped with Parmesan cheese, and browned under a broiler. It was dad’s specialty but the entire family joined in the preparation. Dad was from New England, so while the water boiled and cheese was grated there were stories of prodigious lobster feasts “in the old days” involving relatives we knew only from photo albums.

The wine glasses were dusted, mom unfolded her best table cloth onto the chrome-legged kitchen table, and with the “pop” of the champagne cork, dinner was served. The sweet taste of the lobster meat and creamy sauce were perfection with the dry crispness of the wine. My father seemed to appreciate the meal the most. Unfailingly, every year he would remark, “Hmm. Hmm. I’ve outdone myself this time.”

New Years Eve 2005 found us forlornly standing on a parched, pebble-strewn airstrip in Mexico’s Sonoran Desert. In retrospect, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that the engine on the Eisenhower-era aircraft refused to cough to life, stranding 36 passengers. It was the last flight of the afternoon, and the next distressing news came when an airline employee informed us that because of the holiday weekend there would be no mechanic for three days.

My husband and I retrieved our bags and piled into a taxi for the unexpected return trip to the marina village San Carlos Bay, on the Sea of Cortez. After checking into accommodations arranged by the airline we decided to make the best of it by heading to the marina for dinner.

What previously had been a sleepy Mexican coastal village of 6,000 people was suddenly full of life and full volume. This was not what we had in mind for New Year’s Eve. In fact we had no plans that evening aside from returning to our southern California home, unpacking, reading the vacation accumulation of mail, and turning the lights out well before midnight.

Our dockside table-for-two overlooked rows of idle boats whose gently tilting masts swayed like lethargic metronomes. The tuxedo-clad waiter looked dashing. We, on the other hand, were shabby in wrinkled and less-than-fresh apparel hastily hauled out of the bottom of a suitcase.

Breathless when we arrived at the restaurant, I was momentarily distracted by a cracked wine glass on the table and thoughts of when we’d eventually see home again. The damaged glass removed and replaced, we turned our attention to the waiter who ran down the pre-fixe offerings of the evening. One of the selections was Lobster Thermidor and champagne.

I was speechless. My husband, well acquainted with the family lore, couldn’t believe it either. We looked at one another a long moment. It was the obvious choice and we placed our order.

“Dad’s here,” I said softly once the waiter left.

“Yes, he is,” my husband replied and reached for my hand across the table.

We look forward to many more years of planning adventure travel and to the unplanned surprises they are certain to bring.

Lynne Friedmann is a freelance writer who lives in Solana Beach, California.