Pre-turkey

The collapsed Catholic in me still holds up Holy Week as the model for what all major holidays should be like. That runup to Easter contains specific special days with prescribed rituals preparing the faithful for the grand finale of Sunday, all with their own props and fun activities (wave palm fronds! watch people squirm uncomfortably when the priest washes their feet! take part in community theater! get copious amounts of holy water flung your way!). The other holidays lurk under the bed, rustling louder and louder as the calendar flips in their direction, but, ultimately, they still jump out, grab you by the shoulders and shake, and then sprint away again to hide until next year, leaving you rattled, hair mussed, glasses askew, unsure if you should be relieved or saddened, but thoroughly bewildered.

That's how they treat me, anyway, even in the modern era of Christmas decorations cropping up at Target before Halloween. No matter how much preparation goes into it, Thanksgiving is still just a single day on the calendar, with normal life expected to go on as usual right up until about five in the afternoon the day before and starting up again at the crack of dawn the day after.

I don't like it.

Tomorrow needs to be a national holiday too. Most people take at least part of it off already, to join the frenzy at Safeway or get on a plane to wherever they're having dinner on Thursday. The rest of us just get drunk at work. We should just call it Market Day or something and be done with it. And Friday, of course, should be Recovery and Leftovers Day. How much writing am I really going to get finished on a pie and stuffing hangover? Seriously. And that doesn't even account for all the wine that will need to be polished off.

List of things I am thankful for this year? Very short list, just one item, really. I have a sense of contentment I've not experienced in recent memory. All the relationships are clicking, and that's all I need. Even if it doesn't make for riveting blogging.