Oh November

It's November. The month of death.

Fall used to be my favorite season. I am still infatuated with the beauty of the  leaves, the crispness of the air, the smell of chimneys, and... that's it, really. You can take the cold, the frosts, the increasing darkness, and stuff it.

I wish I could hibernate.

November would be awful if it wasn't for Thanksgiving.  Oh Thanksgiving.  Cornucopias and pumpkin pie, gelatinous cranberry sauce, glorious tryptophan, and me correcting my children's flawed nomenclature: No, honey, Indians are people from India. What are they showing you Pocahontas in school for, anyway? I could keep you home and show you Pocahontas, except that it is the most historically inaccurate movie I've ever not seen, so I wouldn't.

Soon, the kids will bring home turkeys made from their little handprints, and we will bake gingerbread cookies and read about the Mayflower.  It will rain outside and be grey, but then Ben will spontaneously say something like, "I'm thankful for YOU mom.  I made you a robot."  And suddenly, it will feel as warm as July. 

We'll watch the A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving this year, I hope.  I miss it every year.  That Charles Schultz sure knew how to make a girl all teary. 

I'll simmer cinnamon scented potpourri on the stove, because that's what people who don't bake much do to make their house smell wonderful.  As days pass, the Halloween candy will dwindle and we'll all get a little fatter, just like those poor, ill-fated turkeys.  The pumpkins sitting the porch will start to get ripe, and I'll throw them away amidst protests from children who don't understand that pumpkins are a perishable fruit.

We will be thankful in spite of the bleak skies, the dead leaves, the rotting pumpkins.  We will go around the table, say what we're thankful for, and though our reasons might sound trite, they will somehow still ring true.  And I will be so filled with love and hope, because spring does (so far) always come again, and because we all have each other.

So, on this first of November, I'm thankful for... Thanksgiving.  The whole commercial she-bang.  (And I don't even like turkey that much.  I'd prefer lasagna.)

I think March could use a Thanksgiving.