It’s what I have come to call “That time of year” again — the late fall days in November between holidays when daylight savings time ends and the twinkle of Christmas lights begin to  illuminate the darkness. The year is winding down, the New Year is rapidly approaching, and already everyone is asking where the time (and money) went. But for me, these November days bring a mood of ennui. People ask me, “What is wrong? You don’t seem like yourself.” 

     “It’s just that time of year,” I say. 

     Back when I was in the thick of my career and had numerous family members, friends and colleagues nearby, my social calendar for the whole holiday season would start filling in by mid-November and the stress of planning, baking, shopping, mailing gifts and addressing cards would reach a fevered pitch by Thanksgiving. Of course, while living in the Northeast, weather was  always an ever-present threat to those eagerly anticipated holiday plans. 

     But all this worry and anxiety now  — not so much. We aren’t very social anymore, haven’t  many family or friends in the area, don’t attend work-related events, and aren’t heavily involved in clubs and organizations any longer. My closest friends and family called a moratorium on gift giving ages ago (nobody needs more stuff and nobody needs to stand in long lines at the post office to mail packages that probably won’t arrive on time anyway!)  I’ve been culling my holiday decorations as I unpack them for several years now, finally gave in and bought an artificial tree, and have long since sold all my china, crystal and silver with place settings for twelve. At my age, who needs to take care of all this stuff, much less store it.

     Now I don’t mean to sound like a South Texas Scrooge, but you know what?  Shedding all that merry-making effort is freeing. I may feel a bit at loose ends during this “time of year,” but I’m not as stressed and certainly not as frantic about meeting all the expectations of others with those family dinners, wrapping gifts, writing cards, making calls, etc. I’ll admit it: I can relax a little, and even chuckle while watching everyone else race to the “doorbuster specials.” Been there, done that — all of it and then some.

     Thankfully, some “fallish” weather has finally arrived here, albeit in wild, almost daily swings of 50 degree temperatures. I sometimes have to bundle up for my morning walk in 40° and then don a light-weight T-shirt in a 90° afternoon outing. We are constantly adjusting our thermostat from air to heat to off, but hey! This is Texas, and temperatures aren’t the only weather story. 

     November days here are generally crisp and clear without a single cloud in the pure blue sky above; sudden dust-ups of wind swirl leaves and sway trees and the sun is somehow lower and less intense overhead.  Now that the clocks have changed and the sun sets earlier, my husband and I have started to sit out on our patio in the dusk of a late afternoon and enjoy a glass of wine among the arrangement of pumpkins and mums around the fireplace. Now that we’ve finally found outdoor furniture cushions that the squirrels won’t tear apart, we can even enjoy them and their antics as they scamper about the yard. It’s a calm, civilized way to end the day.

     Now that I’ve slowed down enough to “smell the roses” (and we do grow roses in our garden), I find time to pay more attention to Mother Nature and find her signs of each season to be both a comfort and an education. The one great thing Texas has is the vast open sky, and it was the one thing I always missed when we didn’t live here. Even in urban areas and neighborhoods where I live now, views of the night sky are broad and accessible. 

     At the moment, we are experiencing another full moon, this year also a supermoon, called the Beaver Moon (its high was Nov. 5). It was given that name by early Native Americans because beavers were most actively preparing for winter in November by stockpiling their food caches and fortifying their underwater lodges and dams. Thus, they were out and about and more plentiful, which meant that hunters were also out and about after them. Beaver fur thickens in the fall and so their pelts are warm and waterproof, and therefore desirable for human protection in winter. Not surprisingly, the Beaver Moon also came to represent an astrological and spiritual period of  preparation and reflection for the darkness of winter to come. 

     Regardless of today’s push to rewrite history and eliminate “wokeness,” there is no doubt that much of our own American history and spiritual values emanate from early Native American practices and beliefs such as all those about the harvest and preparations for winter. I’m sure many remember those pictures in history books of newly-arrived pilgrims alongside Native Americans celebrating the first Thanksgiving with corn and foul. (Wonder if such pictures have been purged from elementary-school books by now?)  Today, November means Thanksgiving to almost everybody, even though it took until 1941 for the 4th Thursday of November to become a nationwide federal holiday of celebration.

     The great thing about Thanksgiving is that it is a truly American,  non-secterian designation honored by all faiths and all ethnic groups, each in their own way, as a collective expression of gratitude for the bounty and the beauty of the American experience. While it may aptly be considered as “the calm before the storm” of the holiday shopping season, Thanksgiving has managed to resist the crass commercialism of other major holidays and to retain a clarity of values and purpose. Our families — large or small, blended or intact, old or young,  religious or nones, multi-ethnic or monocultural — as messy and contentious as they might be, are who we are. And we willingly come together to share a meal and spend time with each other.  

     The meal matters, of course. Many of us have vague recollections of  those Norman Rockwell images of the perfect family (that don’t look anything like us) gathered around the holiday table, but spending time with those we love IS what matters most. As I reflect on “that time of year” that is November, I realize that time itself is the greatest gift of all.