Best Weekend of The Year

Thanksgiving weekend is the best weekend of the year. The weekend starts on Wednesday.
Thursday has a feast, followed by three more days in which to play, shop, or do whatever.

I spent a lot of time with family, did no shopping but a bunch of yard work and had three fires in my newly purchased fire pit. The yard is now basically ready for the winter and we showed up to work on Monday nicely rested and ready to tackle the rigors of the Christmas season. There is nothing like the four day Thanksgiving weekend.

Seasonal Closure

Rather than spend the weekend after Thanksgiving battling the masses for silly sale prices on silly things we don't need (at Christmas time or any other time of year for that matter) we spent the weekend around the Quarter Acre shutting down the yard for the season.

We've raked the yard a couple of times this year, mowed the lawn close, applied the winterizer and basically kept things looking sharp. This past weekend was the final push. At the back of the property is a hill that runs the entire the width of the plot. Atop this hill sit several oak trees that produce copious amounts of acorns that litter the lawn and leaves that blanket the hill.

The leaf-blanketed hill is messy-looking, and we spent 6 hours raking it, bagging the leaves and taking the refuse (23 thirty Gallon bags) to the giant leaf pile at the town dump. It was one of the best days yet on the Quarter Acre -- a crisp, beautiful, November, Saturday, outside, engaged in good honest hard work that added a blister to the inside of our thumb, and a new layer of dirt and scuffs to our boots. Additionally, we cut the dead Hostas, Astilbes and other perennials to the ground; raked out beds; mowed the lawn for the last time (mainly to pick up stray leaves); put away the gas grill and the Adirondack chairs and disposed of a completely rotten chimenia.

The yard is neat and trim and looks as spare as the leafless trees that surround it. There is a beauty now to the Quarter Acre that is both of and from the season that increasingly settles upon it. Stripped down, dormant and waiting, the yard is closed for the season, anticipating the Spring and the beginning of next year's ministrations.

Crazy Friday

A friend of Quarter Acre asked us to write about the first shopping day of the 2006 Christmas Shopping Season. This friend was horrified by of our fellow Americans and described them as "greedy" as they bum-rushed the gates of stores to scoop up holiday bargains. We certainly agree that the behavior of our fellow Americans on this day is disturbingly boorish. However, we're not completely sure that it's evidence of greed, per se, but rather misplaced priorities and consumerist venality.

One thing that we've always thought is that people like to shop on the day after Thanksgiving because they want something about which to talk and complain. Americans love to tell stories that involve distress and discomfort. For us, there is nothing more uncomfortable and distressing than the thought of arising at 5:30 AM to push and shove strangers at the door of a store to buy things that will be thrown out, disused and forgotten within weeks of their receipt -- because, honestly, isn't that the fate of most of the things we buy in the big box stores? Yet, each weekend immediately following Thanksgiving, the media, and our personal spheres are filled with tales of shopping-woe and mall-based-misery arising from the "Official Kickoff to the Shopping Season." If the so-called savvy-shopper doesn't know that this weekend is going to be miserable by this point then there is not much that we can do to help them; and, if savings of 50% - 70% off regularly priced items don't mitigate the agony then is Thankgiving-Friday shopping really worth it? What's wrong with internet shopping?

Thanksgiving Eve

Today is Thanksgiving Eve, the true kickoff to the Holiday season. This is one of our favorite days of the year, and the start of one of the most enjoyable times on the Quarter Acre. There is much work to be, much to be prepared over the next month, but it is all fun and all driven by love and cheer. We love that the darkest, coldest time of year brings this period of heightened focus on family, home and charity -- the old boys who set up the Ecumenical calendar knew what they were doing all right. As we try to do each day, but particularly on Thanksgiving, it is fitting to give thanks for all that we have, especially:

Family
Friends
Job
Home
Food on the table
Our Armed Forces
Being an American

Happy Thanksgiving to all who may stumble upon the Quarter Acre.