Here comes my favorite holiday: a day devoted entirely to celebrating the people and events and circumstances and things that bring us joy, or that make us comfortable, or that remind that our wee little lives are in fact miraculous events.
And it comes at my favorite time of year, when the air is snapping with energy but has yet to grow chill, when the vineyards and deciduous trees in the Napa Valley conspire to turn the landscape into a crazy quilt of color, and the coming holiday buzz is still just a tingle.
I had thought of listing the things for which I am particularly grateful at this point in my own wee little life, but that would make this a very long post indeed, and besides that would only be my list: surely you have your own, and perhaps you’ve noticed that broadcasting a catalogue of your blessings can take on the unfortunate flavor of a boast, or become treacly and unpalatable when shared.
So I’m not going to do that. For one thing, I’m spending every minute I can this week with family and friends, those whom I don’t often get to see. Also there is cooking to do — communal cooking, the best kind — because one of the other wonderful things about Thanksgiving is that it is also a celebration of abundance, a revelry centered around two of my very most favorite things in life: yummy food and delicious drink.
I would have made an excellent hobbit, were I not rather tall.
It is a lovely thing, that once a year we turn our collective attention to an activity that makes us all happier and calmer: saying thank you. And so at the risk of bringing on the treacle, I want you to know how grateful I am to you, dear reader, for contributing your light to the firmament in which I, in my wee little way, am so astonishingly lucky to reside. May your life’s table, both metaphorical and actual, overflow with all that delights you.
Happy Thanksgiving!