The Next Big Thing

Goodbye, Halloween. Hello, Thanksgiving.

The transition was hard. We had a last candy feast on Sunday evening and packed up all the decorations. Bud and Sis just didn't understand that Halloween was over, even if their costumes are now in the dress-up box downstairs and available for play anytime. But the candy, the nighttime romp, the parties, are over.

It's harder to get jazzed about Thanksgiving as a kid. Sure, eating is fun. But, well, what else? No eggs to find. No presents to unwrap. No fireworks. No birthday candles. We pulled out our Thanksgivng decorations and books, trying to transfer the Halloween happiness into enthusiasm for the next holiday.

And they took to it like, well, the only poultry metaphor I can recall is "ducks to water." They put our two big stuffed turkeys (oh, don't get me started on the irony of that as the symbol of the holiday. Turkeys or pilgrims. I'm disturbed as a vegetarian, a culturally-sensitive individual, and an historian) in the middle of the sofa table and set it with our cloth napkins for a feast. They invited all of their critters and fed them corn, eggplant, tomatoes, and birthday cake.

Otherwise, Sis is already planning on her pumpkin pie and Bud has requested strawberry jello (in my new jello mold!). Mama and I are making plans for how to watch the parade on television (since the only tv is tiny and upstairs) and how to augment the turkey with enough sides for us two vegetarians.

But I feel we might be behind already. The store I was in yesterday has skipped Thanksgiving completely and is already playing Christmas music. What is it Charlie Brown says? "Argh!"