But First: Happy Thanksgiving

Hallowe’en is past, and the next day the Christmas products appeared, at least on the shelves that weren’t already decked with Christmas products. That stuff has been in the big stores on the mainland since August.

All my life the Christmas shopping season has left me feeling inadequate and disorganized about Christmas shopping and gift giving. There is a reason for that feeling: I am inadequate and disorganized when it comes to Christmas shopping and gift giving. I’m the one waiting to mail packages at the post office on December 23rd, for example. Or sometimes on December 27th, or sometimes in January or March. The feeling of knowing I’m going to fail the cultural Christmas obstacle course again is so intense I want to hide away until it’s over.

I don’t have a problem with Christmas, the day that celebrates the birth of the baby Jesus, or Chanukah or Kwanzaa or the Solstice or any other mid-winter sacred observance. I have no trouble with the sacred. But the commercial season that dominates the last three months of the year, when you are pushed at every turn to "Spend and deliver!" is what gets me.

Note: "Stand and deliver!" is what British highwaymen used to say when they robbed people. "Your money or your life!" was also popular, but I’ve never seen that in a Christmas ad. Yet.

For years we all went out and bought Christmas with credit cards, but that party’s been over for a few years for most of us. So how do we observe the day, and somehow partake in the giving ritual?

One way I handle Christmas shopping the last few years is to shop on the island. I feel that my little mite spent locally is doing more good than if I spent it on the mainland buying stuff made in China, and the variety and selection of unique gifts here is amazing.

Also I make things – hats, scarves, throws, poems, songs. I do what I can. I hope that my friends and family understand by now that most of what I have to offer has to be manufactured in my increasingly creaky brain, or by my increasingly creaky fingers.

Also, I have been known to blow off shopping entirely except for the children. Everyone else gets my good will and best wishes and the hope that they understand the constraints of a fixed income.

Naturally, as much as I hate to be told to buy-buy-buy, I am like most kids and want to write a letter to Santa asking for what I want for Christmas. It is a time of life when I want to get rid of things in my house instead of bringing more things in, so my wants tend to be things like getting my treadle sewing machine up and running again. Actually, that’s all I’ve been able to think of so far this year.

What I most want now is for my children and grand children to be happy and have good lives, and have the grit and determination to make it through their hard times, learn from them, and still be able to laugh.

I want my husband’s health to remain steady and okay for years to come. I want my life to be lively all the way to the end. I want to remember more often that God is in control and we are all loved, and feel the relief of those elusive truths.

Those are not things I can buy in stores, but they are things I want. Any time. Doesn’t have to be Christmas.

For now, I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. Remember Thanksgiving? Holiday between Hallowe’en and Christmas? The day that makes strong men sleep and turkeys tremble? Yeah. That. Enjoy.