Holidays. There are lots of them. There are the fun holidays, like New Year’s, Martin Luther King, Valentine’s Day [a boon to the floral, stationary and candy making industries], St. Patrick’s Day [arguably for the Irish, but as my Da used to say, “there’s only two kinds of people in the world on March 17th, those who are Irish and those who wish they were.”], Memorial Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day that don’t seem to bring out anything but the holiday mood.
I mean really what is wrong with..a day on which one is exempt from work; specifically : a day marked by a general suspension of work in commemoration of an event. I mean, general suspension of work does sound awesome, but it’s not. Because there is no suspension of work. In order to enjoy the holiday somebody somewhere has to work, either selling the stuff or making the stuff or preparing the stuff or putting the stuff on the table. It just doesn’t seem like you have to do so much work in the fun holidays.
Then, squish. You run right into Thanksgiving, like most decreed, legal and almost universal! So, I have some questions. The whole thankful thing is disturbing and confusing. Do we only say we are thankful on one day per year? Why did the government have to tell us what day that is? Sometimes I think, Lord, we could all break our arms patting ourselves on the back for being so bloody thankful.
And the important thing, you never really have time to digest all the food when you have to face Christmas, which is more than a meal, it is breads and muffins, fruit cake, cookies, fudge plus the meal. Don’t get me wrong. I love Christmas. I love every thing about it, well, mostly everything. I liked it a lot more when I was a kid and not responsible of anything but not eating all the black olives on the lazy susan in the middle of the table, and not eating so much it made me throw up. Yes, Christmas was not about toys, it was about food. I had a metabolism that could break the mile in a minute–food, and lots of it, not a problem.
As I’ve progressed along this journey, the squish has gotten squishier. One of the things I loved as a kid was I KNEW that meal. I knew there would be turkey, with giblet gravy, candied sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, cranberry jelly, maybe some kind of veggie, but it was just to add color to the table, and of course, the jello-salad, probably with cocktail fruit in it. Oh, yea! Then stupidly we tried change. I remember the year Mom decided to make a roast beef and plum pudding. Yuck! I remember nothing about that meal, but that it wasn’t Christmas, not really.
So here we are, a full circle, just Tom and me this holiday season. Thankfully, back to the same meal as I loved as a kid.