In which begrudging acceptance of the Holiday Season is proffered to the holiday gods

(not the religious ones nominally being honored by our various countrymen, but to the all mighty marketeers, musicians and retailers hell bent on turning "Christmas" into the single uber-holiday to last all year and incorporate all supplanted holidays...) All right, we're on. You half-heartedly handed me Halloween upon my promise to purchase candy enough to provide diabetes and cardiac problems for the entire population of Guam. You allowed me to look the other way beyond the aisles of garlands and and towards the brief nod to turkeys and pilgrims that summarize Thanksgiving. Sure, you blared holiday pop carols at me in stores, and yes you let the crepuscular ooze of "Black Friday" discolor Thursday ... but I still managed a peaceful cease fire. I am steeled. I have had my dressing and squash soup, I have rid the closets of material dross... bring it on. I'm ready to shop, sip egg nog (sparingly and with astonished shock as its cloying sapor seeps across my tongue), deck the gosh-darned halls and innundate myself with Bing Crosby crooning to little Ralphie in a pink bunny suit who has not in fact shot his eye out just yet!

Ho Ho friggety ho, baby. Well, I accept you, Christmas Season, but you'll have to give me a little more time to embrace you with elan.

I do love Christmas, but I don't get excited about it until the onset of Advent. I'm not the most markedly observant Episcopalian, but the traditions of childhood Advent have shaped my sense of the holiday and that breathless quiet excitement over increasingly bright candle-light (and maybe those little chocolates behind the advent calendar) certainly roil my holiday spirit to full bursting by the 20th or so.

In between I'll wax nostalgic about craft parties and caroling parties and other memories flung about the inner chambers of my brain.

For now, I'll say that Thanksgiving was quite a nice, quiet affair. My usual Thanksgiving partner in revelry was back East with my sister, her family, and my aunts. My mother doesn't celebrate the holiday much. And my fiance decided to fly back to San Francisco for a third time in three months for his family Thanksgiving double-feature smooshed into a handful of hours and a lot of travel time.

Thanksgiving, as I've noted, is my time to imperil myself in various culinary fashions. I rarely cook in any quantity, because of my particular tastes and how they intersect with my particular laziness. But Thanksgiving, paired with Christmas and possibly East, is my time to whip out the deadly tools and focus on chopping, sauteing  stewing, dicing, and processing (with a machine, not like sitting around reflecting on how food has influenced my attachment style and the further impact of my gustatory urges against an libidinous relish of the intangible world).Inevitably there is collateral damage - my left pointer finger has been slightly defaced with a new scar and a mixing spoon or two did not escape the wrath of a fetid blender - but the product is glorious and the process is almost zen. Also, I tend to have left overs for a good time afterwards, given the way that I prefer to eat. Another benefit of cooking the meal entirely for myself is that there's nobody foisting feasting-portions on my avian stomach. Here was my Thanksgiving meal:

Clockwise, we've got butternut apple soup, vegan quinoa stuffing, spicy quinoa and sweet potato salad, and mashed cauliflower with plenty of garlic and a touch of sweet potato. I also made a cabbage and apple slaw with mint and lime juice (ended up adding tvp, cilantro, cayenne and more garlic and onions for a really great follow up lunch). And had greek yogurt, bananas and pecans in plenty of cinnamon for dessert. It was rather perfect.

And of course there was Black Friday and our family contrarian tradition of cleaning out our closets, nooks and crannies of things we just don't need. I am always amazed at how much stuff can sit in undisturbed solidity until it has sedimented into small canyons of unneeded and unheeded clutter. Usually in the tiniest corner of these piles is an object of great value that is still deeply needed and thought lost. It provides an opportunity for rediscovery, purging, and an archeological dig through our own personal pasts. After the extreme clean out of last year, I was fairly convinced this would be a light year, but I was mistaken. Despite even an advanced trip last week, there is still a living room full of bags without mentioning the extra bags in my car or about the house.

FREEDOM!!!! My possessions will no longer own me. I will not be my yin-yang coffee table!

I am basking in the afterglow of absence. Feeling light and refreshed in the absence of so many questionable piles of "could-be-useful"... It's a pleasant way to kick off Christmas season and a nice interlude between holidays that have distinct undertones of excess and overindulgence clogging up some of their nicer messages.

And with that, I'm on to making lists (checking them fifty times), addressing holiday cards, and watching roughly 2,000 hours of mandatory Christmas cinema. Wish me luck and I'll reciprocate with some well-wishing of my own.