The REAL most wonderful time of the year

I can't believe Halloween was only a week ago. It seems a lot longer to me. I had to work. But they provided donuts for us, some of which had orange and black sprinkles on them, so I was allowed to eat them. I went trick-or-treating with Allie, dressed in my vampiric costume from my 5k. I went up to doors with her at first, while Nan and Matt waited, but eventually she was fine going up by herself. It was one of the warmest Halloweens I remember--I was comfortable in my shorts.

Maybe the reason Halloween seems so long ago is because I worked so much this week. I don't think I ever got off before 4:00, starting at 7:00 a.m. every day. Part of this is because they never posted a schedule, so I just worked until they told me to leave. But they really needed all the help they could get. Sadly, all this work, along with Saturday's snow, meant that I didn't get to go running once this week.

On Tuesday, during my lunch break I went to a nearby place called Port of Subs. I got a sandwich called the Pilgrim Griller, which I only knew about because I decided to try Port of Subs a few weeks ago. It's turkey, cheese, stuffing, and cranberry sauce on a sandwich. The combination of me being hungry and it being a novelty left me very satisfied. Then I drove back to work, while the mountain ahead of me had a dusting of snow, and my CD playing a song from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. I was so happy. This is my favorite time of year.

I don't know what it is about Thanksgiving, but I just love it so much. The temperatures are cool, but not completely cold yet (usually). There's a certain bareness--the Halloween decorations are gone, but the Christmas ones aren't up yet (usually), and the leaves are significantly reduced but there's not much in the way of snow (usually). Then there's the day itself--everyone's off school and work (usually), and it's just a nice relaxing day (usually). I just love it.

This week I got all of our inside Thanksgiving decorations up, but the snow put a damper on putting up the outside stuff (my inflatable turkey and my pilgrim lights). On Thursday night I went to the store, and they had a big bag of bulk candy corn taffy they were trying to get rid of, as well as candy corn Dots. I bought these. (Oddly enough, there wasn't any candy corn.) Yesterday (Saturday) I made spiced apple cider with cinnamon and cloves. (Once you've had this, you'll never go back to that stupid powder stuff.) I added my Thanksgiving music to my playlist, consisting of recordings of hymns 91-95 and music from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

I usually like snow, but I'm not sure what to think of it this time. My biggest fear is that it will get people thinking about Christmas. Consider the following:

• When I went to Winegar's grocery store (where I bought all the candy), as I pulled up, there was a big banner saying "Happy Thanksgiving" on the front of the store. But once I went inside, I found out they were just a whited sepulchre with all manner of uncleanness inside, in the form of wreaths, garlands, and nutcrackers. It would have been more tolerable if it were just in the seasonal aisle, but no, this was the case at customer service, the deli, and the meat department.
• Christmas commercials have started.
• In my last post, the one about Thanksgiving memories, most of the years are tied to Christmas in some way, and most of that is against my wishes.
• When I got in the car yesterday, the music my mom--my very own mother!--had been listening to came on, and I was subjected, if only briefly, to strains of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing, "Still, Still, Still."

I would like to remind everyone that Thanksgiving is the next holiday. NOT Christmas. Today at church there were two testimonies lambasting premature Christmas music. Hooray for testimonies! There has been a picture circulating of a turkey yelling at Santa Claus: "December, fat boy! This month is for MY holiday! Now hop in that sleigh and wait your turn!" I agree with this, except for one thing. Christmas is the aggressive holiday, not Thanksgiving.

Please don't misunderstand. I love Christmas. But "to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1). So if you put up your Christmas tree or listen to yule music before Thanksgiving, you are disobeying the Bible.