Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! Yes Thanksgiving, that little sliver of a holiday we used to celebrate in the fall. It once symbolized the harvest season, now it’s Black Friday eve. How odd that the Halloween pumpkins are still freshly smashed, and the elevators and doctor’s offices are cranking up the Christmas music. Quick--unbox the Christmas tree and spray the pine scent around. St. Visa will soon be here with ruby red-nose Rudolph.

But wait. What about Thanksgiving? What about over the river and through the woods? What about eating yourself sleepy at Grandma’s house and hiding Grandpa’s teeth? If Thanksgiving were in a favorite holiday pageant, and asked how it stacks up to Christmas What would it say?

Perhaps that Thanksgiving is less produced. At least less produced than Christmas or Independence Day, for example. Any holiday that keeps you out of the Mall or Wal-Mart is indeed a holiday.

While retailers lustfully wait for the day after Thanksgiving to absorb our credit and deposit our dollars, maybe we could put them off for a bit. (The notable exceptions, of course, are Best Buy and Home Depot, in which we need to share our coin during all the seasons.)

How about not just a day of Thanksgiving, a day off from Frosty and the Workshop Elves, but a season of Thanksgiving that begins the day after Halloween when we are thankful we are less compelled to eat everything in the pillowcase, and extend that until Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving day.

How do you beat a holiday dedicated to giving thanks? No one ever got arrested for being too thankful. It doesn’t cost anything and you don’t have to wait until it goes on sale. All it takes is a little pause. Look up at the night sparklers, take a walk like it was the first time with your eyes open, watch a baby smile, feed a duck (preferably to a falcon :) ) play hopscotch, rake a neighbors leaves, buy a stranger a Coke, remember well a friend before their funeral, thank God you don’t have a headache.

Thanksgiving like many holidays began with a feast, a little meal shared between neighbors signifying their gratitude for not killing each other. Still not a bad idea. And it can be done simply without committees and crowd control or frazzled worriers sure that someone will be misplaced from their name tagged plate.

One of my best Thanksgiving memories was set in New England. We lived in Ridgefield, Connecticut, just a state away from the first harvest feast between pilgrims and their native neighbors. My sister and her husband came from Utah to visit and a second sister living in nearby New York also joined us. My parents were in South Africa, while the rest of our families were spread out in the West. The meal was a simple meal, with the rich patchwork textures of Connecticut as a backdrop.

John Greenleaf Whittier penned a Thanksgiving verse and symbolized the New England gathering of "pilgrim and guest" by calling his poem, The Pumpkin.

What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?

As my own past is called up, rich as pumpkin pie, the pie is ever pumpkin with hand whipped cream heaped with extra sugar when Mom turned her head. Along with family in easy chatter, what also calls the past is the autumn leaf. Especially the New England treelets. I see piles and shades of gold and red, huge Crayola snow flakes (the big box kind with the built-in sharper) gathering on lawns and stony fences and meandering down wandering roads.

And as a car whisks down the path, the leaves like color fairies are set in orbit and spin to new destinies. And I think of myself, whisking down a path toward the Thanksgiving day and meal. Whether simple or complex I will soak in the kitchen smells, thank the floured aprons, the pleasant table display, the chairs filled with loved ones.

I hope my thanks includes my help before, after or during, but know I will be trusted mostly during the after phase. I washed dishes professionally once, so will I draw on those skills. And then I will look for a soft chair, a good book and someone to catch up with. In all, I give thanks, and hopefully will make a season of it.

© Shayne Clarke 2008

Halloween Dance

At what turned out to be the second-to-last house for trick or treating, I noticed that my son Danaan, age six at the time, was doing a light dance as he waited for the candy to be disbursed. Seeing the choreography was similar to steps he does in the middle of the night while trying to remember which room contains a toilet, I yelled at him to dance straight to the car. I knew time was short. And while I calculated the chance of making it home before his bladder exploded, he turned and walked straight through the valley of the shadow of tooth decay to the next door.

And yes this house proved to be his last chance for free candy. By now the dance at the door rivaled the rhythm of an early morning aerobics class. He could barely hold his bag open. He had the focus of a cat waiting for the mouse to peek out. The focus had been the anticipated candy--was it a real Snickers or the “fun” size? (And don’t we all agree that a real fun size would be a foot long?) But the focus changed. Now it was like the vulture eating in the middle of the road, who thinks to himself, “Can I take one more bite before the on-coming truck hits me?”

Or sure he could have said, “Excuse me Ma’am, thanks again for the Smarties, but I was wondering if I could use your bathroom before I pee my pants?” But of course, this doesn’t happen. And I would have bet a Big Hunk, on that one. I was six once. I peed my pants right there in the lunch room because I was afraid to ask someone where the little boy’s room was. And then I had to sit there all during lunch hoping it would dry before I had to go back to class. It didn’t.

I knew Danaan wouldn’t ask. I knew it really was the last door as he scampered down the steps and raced to the car. I also knew we were in trouble as his steps moved quickly from the high-energy, high-stepping stride of a bathroom seeker, to the slow, wide-walking waltz of a shower seeker. His face morphed from a candy thrill-seeker to the Pillsbury doughboy who just met a rolling pin.

The appropriate response to his state was unclear. There is just something funny about the walk of a kid who has just peed his pants, and as much I as wanted to bust out laughing, I had to restrain. He wasn’t sure how to respond either. This was the first time his bladder almost exploded on Candy Night.

His face was a menu of embarrassed laughter and suppressed tears. When he got to the car, I had to make a mature decision. Where do you seat a soiled kid? Do I have him waddle along the side of the car the remaining blocks home? Do I have him ride on the hood? Putting him in the trunk on Halloween was probably not a good idea. Do I go home and get the truck? Call a tow truck? And then I remember he has enough candy in his bag to keep us most saturated in calories until next October. “Hop in bud!” I say warmly. “Let me hold your bag for you.”