A Post With All The Stuffing

Since the last time I wrote a post Joe The Plumber was still relevant, I figured I’d offer up a holiday fare of actual newly written thoughts for this holiday week. I had planned on spending today writing a series of status updates on Facebook that were all related, but then realized that’s basically called Twitter and around the third or fourth update someone would catch on and point out that my idea wasn’t really that unique. Since I am not hardwired to handle that type of criticism (or mathematics, for that matter), I will spend my time writing this instead.

When I discovered the fact that you can write notes as long as you want on Facebook last night, I thought my blogging days might be over. In fact, I actually wrote a post there last night and did not share it here with you. The guilt from that is also what inspired me to finally write a new post, but since that sounds less than sincere, I’m wanted to keep it from you. Though obviously I didn’t because I am here writing all about it. I’d probably be a very bad gossiper, assuming of course that someone actually entrusted me with a piece of gossip. It reminds me of what Michael Scott once said: “I like inside jokes. Maybe someday I’ll get to be a part of one.”

So anywho, my favorite week of the year is finally upon us. While it’s true that the sole fact that this week has only 3 working days would be more than enough to qualify it as my favorite week of the year, there are actually more reasons than just that. Take for instance the weird holiday crossover effect so prevalent during this one week. We are looking forward to and preparing for Thanksgiving, but at the same time preparing and actually beginning to enjoy the fruits of the Christmas season (I mean that figuratively of course because I can’t think of a real Christmas fruit, except for fruit cake, which I love, but that is a combination of many fruits and therefore does not qualify. Plus most people don’t enjoy the holiday brick as much as I do and tend to ridicule me for it).

The dual holiday thing this week is almost like that feeling you get during the time change in the fall and spring when you move your clocks before you go to bed and get to hang out in that limbo hour between what the real time is and what the time when you wake up will be. Or perhaps it’s nothing like that because the time change does not involve eggnog or me dressing as Santa while I run through the house trying to get everyone in the mood to decorate. I guess I could make it more like that by wearing a big clock around my neck while I move the clocks forward or back, but then I’d look ridiculously like Flavor Flav. By the way, please do not ask me how someone who listens to Sinatra and Ella knew his name. Sometimes cultural osmosis can be downright cruel…

It’s also the one week a year when I can liberally reference the WKRP Turkey Drop episode and when every single morning DJ in Northern America feels the need to do the same thing. Sadly, there are not very many times of the year when you can say “as God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly” and actually have it be relevant. Fortunately the limited time each year where you can say that is offset by the fact that you can say “they are hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement” year round. It is during this week each year that I also like to play Paul Simon’s “Still Crazy After All These Years” and then go around flapping my arms while saying “I’m dressed like a turkey. This is just humiliating” ala Paul Simon’s turkey costumed appearance on a very early episode of SNL. These moments are fleeting and rare, but have become tradition for me and holidays are nothing if not tradition.

I’ve often thought about writing down everything I do and say some Thanksgiving so that I can repeat it each year after, thereby creating instant traditions that Lucy and Ethel are sure to remember. While it might eventually seem like the film “Groundhog Day” to them, eventually they will find themselves unable to resist doing those things or reminiscing about those things when they are older because of the sheer repetitiveness of it all and will appreciate the painstaking lengths I went to in order to leave them with traditions. You know, things like accidentally cutting myself while carving the turkey or spilling cranberry sauce down the front of my pants or the insistence that everyone do the turkey dance before sitting down to our Thanksgiving meal. (Mental note: work on that dance thing. It’s a pretty good idea)

All that’s left now is for me have my annual night before Thanksgiving (which I am planning on writing my congressman to have renamed “Thanksgiving Eve”) viewing of “It’s A Wonderful Life (because how can one not be thankful after watching that heartwarming story – though my family hates when I watch it because then anytime anything rings, I have to say the thing about the angel and its wings. And yell “Clarence.” It’s fun, you should try it). Then I get to take my seat (yes, it’s at the kids table. Why do you ask?) the following afternoon and wait for my turkey leg. That sizeable down payment I made to my Grandfather when I was 10, thus ensuring that I would get a turkey leg every year he carves the turkey, has really been worth the scrimping and saving and budgeting it has forced me to do as a grown up.

Enjoy this special week and happy Thanksgiving!! Now, let the stuffed stupor begin!