Time of year
This time of year makes me happy.
Birthday wishes are closely followed by the food of Thanksgiving. I like Thanksgiving because it’s just about food. There’s no entanglement with present opening and anticipation and then the weary clean-up of wrapping paper surrounding the loot. Plus, at Christmas, you’ve just had a good meal a month ago with Thanksgiving. Whereas with Thanksgiving, you’ve had to wait a full year for your turkey-stuffing-mashed-potat0es overeating pleasure/pain.
Thanksgiving is going to be pretty low-key this year. We normally have a friend or two eating with us, but now we have so few friends up here, and most of them will be going home or otherwise adopted.
I also have to work on Thanksgiving, which is no great hardship. As someone who is underemployed, it’s hard to say no to working a holiday when that’s really all an on-call worker is good for.
Another thing I love about this time of year, even in California, is the bite in the air. It is pretty cold in the mornings here in Sacramento, and this tiny house is much easier to heat than that drafty condo with the inefficient heating system. Sometimes, I actually get hot in the middle of the night. I can’t complain about that.
The air feels and smells like fall. Whether my friends and family believe me, there are fall colors here, though to a lesser extent than up in the foothills. You can smell smoke in the air from fireplaces. You can feel the cold air caress your cheeks. And everything is right with the world.
I might even temporarily be in a holiday spirit, which probably will soon be destroyed the the realities of the crass, gimme shopping season that is always fueled by bad temper and a dislike for crowds and rude people.
Perhaps the best way for me to hold on to whatever holiday spirit I might have now by not going into a store for the next month. No holiday music. No smells piped through the store. No ornaments, no newest gewgaws for the lawn.
I can’t afford much in the way of presents this year anyway, so I can also afford to stay out of the store. Let’s see if I can make this work.
