My little sister texted me to ask what we were doing for Thanksgiving.
Ugh.
Writing a novel that has a deadline Wednesday, December 1 means that you don’t want anything to do with NaNoWriMo, nothing to do with Thanksgiving, and panic at the idea of Black Friday. I really don’t have time to do this! And yet, Thanksgiving 2020 didn’t happen at all, except in terms of a series of phone calls and waving at each other briefly over Zoom (which is its own special level-of-hell annoyance).
Thanksgiving has always been our family’s one holiday. Growing up poor, we didn’t do Christmas, which requires an outlay of funds to buy things – and we didn’t get that much into Easter. Our extended family is made up of very religious and very anti-religious people, so Thanksgiving – and, oddly, Labor Day – to us the least religious holidays – have always been the time for the biggest family get-togethers. Courtesy of Covid, our big Thanksgiving do will likely for many years be a thing of the past, so this year, a much smaller holiday-esque mystery party thing might have to happen.
AFTER Thanksgiving. Say, maybe December 12th?
Baby steps. We’ll get things back to some version of “normal” eventually, right?
At least that’s the dream…
P.S., Just in case my editor is reading this: I WILL FINISH. I’m fine. No worries! I’m going to make that deadline! Really! Promise!
P.P.S., Just realized looking at the picture I found for this that I really miss babies. All my book nieces and nephews are either not yet born or toddling/running, so their little thighs are no longer quite so pillowy. Bittersweet! But, they chew and drool much less, and are differently destructive with books, so that’s a win? Progress. Baby steps, as it were…
