in the spirit

Thanksgiving was slow to win me over. Christmas always held the most enchantment, first because of the promise of material gain -- between Santa Claus and the guilt of divorced parents I made out pretty well every year -- then because of ballet and the endless Nutcracker rehearsals that marked the season. Nutcracker is such a funny show. I think the viewing of it (for anyone over the age of nine) makes one cynical about the holidays, but the performing in it is sure to reawaken a sense of wonder. I loved to watch the tree grow night after night. I loved to hear the kids gasp as the mice entered the stage to do battle with the Nutcracker and his soldiers. I loved to watch my friends grow into Sugar Plum Fairy pas de deux; how graceful and elegant they had become.

Anyway, Christmas was it for me: the ultimate holiday. Until I worked in a costume shop. I was old enough then to legally enter bars, and young enough still to relish the permissiveness of a night where sluttier alter egos were not only allowed but encouraged. In parallel, I also discovered how sensual it is to ready a pumpkin for carving. Together, these overpowered my terrific fear of spiders and general dislike of the gory and shockingly scary. I could grow to accept those, just throw a candle in the jack-o-lantern, and hand me and my plunging neckline a beer.

Oh, Halloween and I did have some fun.

I can’t say with precision when that love affair faded. Perhaps it was the eleventy-hundredth time the mummy jumped out from behind the painting hanging ten feet away from the cash register where I rang up hundreds of girls with the same sexy costume, where I asked 50 or so people if they could kindly bag the plastic spiders in their cart that I was too afraid to touch, and where I tried to convince other girls’ boyfriends that hospital scrubs dont' really qualify as a costume. Or, I don’t know, maybe you just wake up one day and know in your bones that once your corset costume is drenched in an entire bottle of champagne by an eager co-worker at the employee ‘we-made-it-through-another-one’ party, there are few places left for Halloween to take you.

So I lit upon Thanksgiving: food, family, still a bit of alcohol -- but no gifts, and overall much kinder to committed relationships than vodka-logged, hormone-fueled late nights in costume. Actually, I love the pies and yams and cranberry sauce. On this one day I even love dish washing.

Bald tires and threats of snow conspired to foil grandma's designs on getting us up to Oregon for the holiday this year. "I'm old," she tells us, "and this could very well be my last Thanksgiving." [Don't fear for her. She is more shameless than frail.] I suppose I should have viewed this change in plans as an opportunity to re-ignite my aspirations of making a pumpkin pie entirely from scratch. I suppose I should have tried to conjure up a full Thanksgiving feast with all the fixins, sized for two. Instead, we made pumpkin risotto and baked apples and enjoyed them from bed. And you know what? Thanksgiving was still Thanksgiving -- even without excessive puttering around in the kitchen. It was great, actually.

It allowed time to wonder if it means anything that I have been dreaming almost exclusively of Make Something Day (which is today!). It allowed the space to get started a little early. And I see my crafting plans stretching out into the weeks ahead.

It allowed time to understand what my apparently fickle heart is trying to tell me: that the stretch of time between the big turkey dinners is actually the most wonderful time of year.

Happy making.