All in favor of Thanksgiving, say Aye!

Thanksgiving is next week! I can't believe it. I love Thanksgiving but man, is it really almost here again?

Thanksgiving is a lovely lovely idea for a holiday. Here's what you're expected to do: eat good food, surround yourself with people you care about, and be thankful for all your blessings. Usually there is some lazing around on the sofa while a football game plays on the TV and a big plate of leftovers lurking to look forward to, as well. No major decorating required. No shopping for perfect presents or desperate last minute dashes to Target for stocking stuffers. That sounds just about perfect to me.

But...and you knew it was coming...here is what is rapidly becoming my standard pre-Thanksgiving rant. Thanksgiving barely seems to exist anymore in the minds of many people (read: retailers) except for, of course, the grocery store people.

Case in point: I wanted to buy some Thanksgiving books to read to William, so I made a happy little trip to a couple of the (very large) chain bookstores here in Nashville, but I couldn't find much of anything! What I found was a piddling little pile of Thanksgiving books for children, nearly an afterthought on a small table or crammed up on one high shelf, nearly completely obscured by the hundreds of sparkly Christmas books. This must be what it feels like to celebrate Chanukah. The Chanukah kids' books get a tiny little afterthought display, with a few defiant titles, while the Christmas books are piled into huge mounds all around them. Sigh. I finally found a boardbook copy of "Corduroy's Thanksgiving," so I bought that. So now we have "Spot's First Thanksgiving" and "Corduroy's Thanksgiving," and that's it. And sadly, that's nearly all there seems to be. I wanted something sort of meaningful, but that was a big strikeout. W is too young for historical books about pilgrims and Indians, but would it be too much to ask to have more than a couple of Thanksgiving books for children for sale this time of year?

I could go on for days about how Macy's hung up its glittery red balls and white lights two weeks before Halloween. Heck, my own subdivision hired people to put up wreaths and garlands on the neighborhood entrance signs....today! Why can't we celebrate Thanksgiving first and then worry about Christmas? Why does everyone have to gloss over Thanksgiving? But it's so inevitable that I am having an increasingly harder time even working up enough energy for a spirited rant, really.

Well, I'm going to eat turkey and put a turkey headband on my toddler and read our (few) Thanksgiving books and then I'll think about Christmas stuff. We're going to do autumn and Thanksgiving first. I know that I am reveling in every drive I take around Nashville right now. The trees are blazing with orange and yellow and even purple and red leaves, and I feel like I have stars in my eyes as I gaze upon the first real autumn that I've seen in person in seven years. I took William out into our back yard today and picked a glorious red leaf from a bottom branch of one of our brave little trees. He was fascinated by it, kept saying, "Leaf? Leaf?" That's right, sweetie. Let's enjoy all this beauty outside while we can, and then let's say our prayers and be grateful for all that we have. And then, only then, will we start making our Christmas list and checking it twice.