Hollidaze Sauce

Halloween blew past, complete with a sassy, boozy turn as Miss Scarlett (I rocked a wrench), trick or treating with my favorite lil' bat and alot of much needed creative outlet costume making. I love the occasion for precisely those reasons. Creativity, alter-ego-for-a-night style drinking, and candy. Not necessarily in that order. Already stoked for next year. And thus it begins.



Then comes Thanksgiving, rapidly approaching with all the reverence of a rustic rest stop on the home stretch to Disneyland. I can't pinpoint exactly when that trend was accepted as the norm, but it's no fun. A good two weeks before Halloween even has a chance to be awesome, the Christmas decorations encroach on the kitch and candy corn. Let alone the pumpkin pie and pilgrim-y charm that's next on the calendar.



All that can ever do is fuel the feeling that life is a runaway train of seasonal chaos (which is more blatant each year of life), and we don't have time to enjoy ANY of it. We have to fight that.
I can't say enough praise for a ritual of binge eating and being thankful. Good stuff. I'm not one to obsess over the turkey or make chestnut stuffing, but growing up I always looked forward to donning fancy fall clothes, listening to/trying to muffle the sounds of the familial ruckus and eating half a dozen homemade ravioli, passing out in food coma bliss. Repeating as necessary. Why rush it?



Then there's the big Christmas shebang. I had a card with the 24 days of Christmas scattered across it, each with it's door to open as a countdown to the big day. I wanted to open them all in rapid succession and make with the gifts and cozy pajama-ed traditions every year. Now that I'm an adult and I have to do the actual planning, budgeting, baking, cooking and wrapping, it's almost like the Super Bowl, instead of a leisurely punch bowl. Full of strategic pressure, moments of epic experience, and a post game stupor. It's a magical time, it's a highly commercialized time. It's frenzied, it's peaceful. It's like all preceding holidays rolled into one capped with a jolly icon to march everyone into gift giving, sugar cookie making, and carol singing. Frazzling, frivolous, fun.



It's one of the few times a kid has a chance to put all their positive energy into one moment-the Christmas morning unveiling-and either it's a blissful cavalcade of presents and joy or a slightly disappointing mystery as to why Santa forsook you and got you anything other than what you specifically asked for. You were after all, extremely good this year. The aforementioned security and excitement of being with loved ones while eating honey glazed ham. Why rush that?



And finally New Years. This one signaling the next whirlwind to be ushered in, almost a mourning period for the year hauling by. Well, if it weren't for the hopeful gaze to what the new one will be. Finding/keeping/wishing for someone to kiss at midnight, making resolutions and reflecting, marking a notch on the growth chart of your life. Drinking and crying a little too much in any absence of anything thereof....this one rushes itself.

By the time the January bills come, you realize how quickly it jetted away. Another year in the can. Exercise, extra jobs to regulate holiday spending, spring cleaning to start formulating. Valentine's. Easter. Such a rocket ride.

Perhaps between the child's twinkly, crawling anticipation and the face paced flow of adult nostalgia, we can slow it down on the actual day with genuine miraculous spirit or revel in the importance of the whole process. That's what tradition and ritual are. I hope so, as I eagerly scramble to settle my own plans and begin the ballet of it all.

By this time next year I'll be satisfactorily slathered once again. I think I'll take my time.