Imagination versus reality

How was your Thanksgiving?  We made the decision as a family not to gather.  I have to admit, I was dreading it.  In an effort to make it seem a little more normal, I committed to making pans of stuffing, apple crisp and pumpkin bread to drop off at three of our kids’ homes.

 So I still rose early and started cooking, still with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade on in the background.  The funny thing was, I didn’t count on how much more cooking that actually worked out to be.  But, had I not been cooking that morning, it would have made the day so much worse.  We then loaded up the car and headed out, making short driveway visits to hand out our food gifts.  And the kids were very grateful, which made it all worth it.  We took the long, scenic route home.  The weather was gorgeous.  Later we sat down to a candlelit dinner for two.  It later occurred to me that in 41 years of marriage we’ve never had a Thanksgiving dinner just for the two of us. 

 On Friday I stuck with my tradition of putting up a tree.  I’m not going to lie; the thought of going out to buy a tree freaked me out a bit.  But as luck would have it, a week before Thanksgiving I noticed they had live potted Christmas trees out in front of our local Walmart.  I was picking up my grocery order at 7:00 am.  At that hour there are no crowds.  It was the perfect solution.  And now, after the holidays, we will have a living memory of 2020.  I hope it survives!

 One of our daughters was married on Black Friday six years ago.  Their anniversary was on Saturday.  As it turned out, their family was exposed to Covid 19 two weeks before Thanksgiving so they were under quarantine up until Thanksgiving Day.  Since that was the case, we kept their girls overnight Saturday night so they could have a romantic dinner at home, without the girls.  The next day she brought us a gingerbread house to build; another tradition saved.

 A little over a week ago I had my turn at a Covid birthday.  Paul and I made the best of it.  My kids all Portalled, (it’s a verb now right?)  They all sent me fantastic presents too.  I now own Steve Martin and Harry Bliss’s new book, A Wealth of Pigeons, and Barack Obama’s new book, A Promised Land, an RBG action figure to add to my collection of political action figures,  some fantastic new drawing pencils, and a Lego Architecture set of London to honor my trip there and my love of most all things British.  They know me pretty well.  And then I had notification that I won the library's November adult reading program; a copy of Ina Garten’s new cookbook, Modern Comfort Food.  I had just returned the copy I had checked out!

 November has always been my favorite month, as it contains both my birthday and my favorite holiday.   But this year, at times I had imagined that ignoring it might be the best way to get through it.  In reality, I’m so glad I didn’t.  That’s not to say I’m not concerned about how we are going to face December.   But maybe the lesson here is to face it head on.  We can’t change what is out of our control.  We just have to do our best to live through the reality of what the circumstances hand us.