The First Thanksgiving was...

...nearly 90 unexpected guests and so much more than we realize to be thankful for, a meal that bridged a culture gap and several days worth of feasting, maybe no pumpkin pies but perhaps popcorn, a celebration that started a Holiday firmly set in Nation-wide observance by president Lincoln and an occasion in and of itself which we aught to be Thankful for.

This week...

or should I say “these past few weeks”... (because, phew, it’s been awhile...I KNOW!)

...have been oh so much soccer and Saturday night dance classes, two fall family vacations and going crazy with the spring-bulb planting, grapevine wreaths and bittersweet trailing across my mantle, giant carved pumpkins and Halloween fun, Planetarium field trips and the bright light of the waxing moon, cold, frosty mornings and dark nights brightened with candles, the start of Pot Roast season and weekly crossword puzzles, the first snow fall and plans for Thanksgiving...

"You can't measure manhood with a tape line around his biceps."

- Billy Sunday

So...what can you do instead?

Well...

You can measure it by the man who will take dance classes with you for your birthday. And surprise you by being better at it than you ever imagined. You can measure it by the man who will put everything on hold, including his own exhaustion and his own inner demons, to take care of you when you are sick. You can measure it by the man who will change a flat tire, on the side of the interstate, without drama or cursing or even one impatient facial expression. You can measure it by the man who will buy you the ridiculously inappropriate black satin high heel shoes just because you like them. You can measure it by the man who grows a mustache merely because you've always wanted to see how he looks with one. You can measure it by the man who knows where to find the video of your daughter's first steps and how to restore it to your computer. You can measure it by the man, who for the above reasons and countless, countless others makes you thankful each and every day that you were blessed enough to be asked to be his. And that you said yes. Without even knowing all that you know. Without even knowing, to be honest, very much at all. Except that he was a man faithful of the trust you were placing in him. And that as a result you would never be the same person again.

“And as I close this chaotic volume I open again the strange small book from which all Christianity came; and I am again haunted by a kind of confirmation. The tremendous figure which fills the Gospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all the thinkers who ever thought themselves tall. His pathos was natural, almost casual. The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing their tears. He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on His open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city. Yet He concealed something. Solemn supermen and imperial diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell. Yet He restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.”

― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

A wind has blown the rain away and blown the sky away and the leaves and the trees stand. I think I, too, have known Autumn too long...

 ...the trees stand. The trees, suddenly wait against the moon's face. 

e.e. cummings

Do you Boo?

We do!

It was a Fabulous Halloween. Despite the rain. Actually, if anything the rain and wind, swirling leaves and restlessly swaying, clattering tree branches added a sort of appropriately spooky and ominous atmosphere to the whole experience.

Everyone was dressed up and bundled up and our front sidewalk was a literal parade of damp and rather bedraggled ghosts and fairies and vampires. 

And umbrellas! 

Never before have I seen so many umbrellas. 

The gutters were running rivers of water and yellow leaves. The candles inside our HUGE pumpkins (generously on loan from our out of town friends...) hissed and sizzled. 

And...drum roll please...we ran out of candy! 

That’s right. Stocked, as we were with nearly 500 pieces of candy this year, and still we ran out. Impressive and yet somewhat embarrassing.

What could we do but turn off the porch lights, go inside and warm up with hot cider and popcorn while watching It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. During which E sorted through her loot, of course. 

A very fine end to a very memorable day.

Happy Halloween!