Walk into your local CVS drugstore anytime in November and find yourself bombarded with a tri-polar holiday disorder. Pilgrims or pumpkins? Turkeys or trees? Wreaths or witches? Goblins or gingerbreads? Piled high in bins of reduced-priced good are ghosts and goblins, witches and werewolves, orange-and-black M&Ms, plastic spiders, fangs and fake blood. On their sit windowpane-sticker turkeys and pilgrims, synthetic leaves, plastic produce, textile turkeys. On their left, plastic wreaths, red ribbons, green and red lights, gingerbread cookie cutters, Santas and snowmen.
Not that I’m immune.
I recently finally put my elementary-school ghost-building skills to good use and gave a lone tennis ball in my home yet another function (it’s a massage ball and teaching tool already)—that of ghost head, what else? Dangling from my fire escape and covered by a threadbare sheet, it did its duty dutifully. Now, for the past ten days, I’ve been ruminating over a pile of leaves, acorns, and other woody things (Google didn’t help) I gathered in Prospect Park recently. They’re predestined to become a turkey incarnation, I know, I just don’t know how. And I’m already on my second batch of Anisguetzli, a vital Swiss Christmas cookie.
So, go ahead, enjoy the holidays, whichever you wish, whenever you wish. It’s contagious.