It isn’t the lovely crisp chardonnay, or the fun tipsy feeling from it, or the succulent golden brown turkey, or the food channel’s latest win for aromatic and delicious stuffing , or even the chocolate pecan pie, that I love most about Thanksgiving. As appealing as the food is, and it is, there are other things that I like even more.
Maybe it is the cleanse that I’ve been on, but all I can think of lately is how warm Thanksgiving makes this fall season. I like Halloween too, with it’s creative costuming, and ever expanding decoration, and its mainstream connection with the spirit world. What I appreciate most after Halloween, is how we begin marinating in a mid-autumn recipe of anticipation, blessings, and celebration.
We begin in early November, after taking the Halloween stuff down, and maybe we put just our legs in this special marinade because first we complain about the holidays NOW being Halloween through Xmas. But then, it starts to feel good, this anticipation of thankfulness across a nation, and we add our arms into the marinade, and soon we’ve completely jumped in. We love soaking up this energy, even if we say we don’t.
It might start with a commercial pull into a store for a candle that makes our homes smell of cinnamon and apples, but it grows, deep within, this lovely desire of anticipation, celebration and gratitude. Thanksgiving kicks off a season that we are all starved for, very simply, a season of feeling full.
Wanting to feel full “reads as” we want to belong, and we feel that belonging in this season. Well, those of us, that like our families enough, find it, and those of us who don’t like our families as much find belonging too, in the new family of kindred spirits that we have been blessed with. We find our belonging in the simple act of being grateful, because saying thank you implies the other, the one we belong to.
I love this time of year and this year I am going to enjoy it till the very end. I am not going to whisper to my sister on Christmas that I am sick of the holidays…no, this year I am going to be like my mother, who wanted to keep the glow of the holidays and the decorations at least till mid-January. How am I going to do this you might ask? The answer seems simple to me today; I am going to do it by feasting on the things that won’t add ten pounds to the scale; the things I like most, and am grateful for; things like, belonging and celebrating all that I have, all that I am.
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Hello everyone, it is Thanksgiving Day! I’m enjoying my extra day off, and I am planning to make something fun that’ll probably involve a moto trip and seeing something new in Amityville I haven’t seen yet.
You write new post at Thanksgiving?