Leonard Light | Teen Elves

What I love best about the Thanksgiving season is that you get to do a lot of hanging out with family and friends. My holiday season starts the day after Halloween. On November 1, I want my boys to drag the tree from its box and put it in its stand. Then I let the kids put the decorations up. Hopefully by now I'm done with a lot of my Christmas shopping, because then it's time to get down to the serious business of family Thanksgiving.

I prefer Thanksgiving to Christmas in some ways. It's Christmas without the presents. You get family and friends and good food, and what's better than that? I don't have to worry if I got anyone their favorite gift—my only concern is whether I found the proper pair of knit pants that will allow the waistband to expand to its greatest proportion.

We like to sit around and eat a lot, laugh often, and hopefully there'll be some good football on. My crew doesn't care if they're watching college or professional football—they just want the television roaring and the food to keep coming. I used to make the Thanksgiving meal but my mother-in-law graciously took that over. I think they were tired of my cooking. One year I left the giblets inside the turkey and couldn't figure out why the thermometer wouldn't ever hit the Poultry mark to show the turkey was done. So I stabbed the bird with a thermometer fork with the rubber caps left on the tines, which embedded themselves in the turkey. It was potluck to see who had the caps in their turkey—and if memory serves, we never did find one of the caps.

Now we have wonderful things such as chocolate pecan pie, pumpkin pie, homemade gravy . . . as I mentioned, an expandable waistband is a necessity. I tell the kids to forego sweets as much as possible during the year, because if you spend Thanksgiving and Christmas gorging on Grandma's delicious homemade fudge and cakes and pies and tea so sweet it's nearly the equivalent of a straight bag of sugar, then you've done enough damage to your kidneys and body for the rest of year. I forgot birthdays. Sometimes on the kids' birthdays, we're served chocolate cake. Very hard to pass that up. But holidays and birthdays, no guilt. Okay, and summer vacation. No one should pass up the delectable treats on summer vacation, like fudge and ice cream from the little beach shops.

But if I'm good for the other forty-nine weeks of the year, then I can buzz my way through the holiday season with no worries. At least that's the plan.

And no holiday season is complete without several trips to the bookstore. I still have enough kiddies in the family that I can shop in the bookstore for toys and books galore. Some bookstores have movie areas as well, so that's a triple dip for me. Just going to the bookstore at that time of year makes me happy. I love to see the new offerings. I always fall prey to the new puzzles, too. Sudoku books, mind teasers . . . the bookstore is Santa's workshop for me.

The family picks one holiday movie every year to go see together. The kids look forward to this, even though my daughter is twenty and my son is sixteen. You'd think this was a holiday tradition that would go by the wayside as they can drive and do things with their friends, but my kids like a sense of tradition. And they want their holiday movie happy. No drama, no sadness. Just straight warmth and jolliness.

My kids' least favorite tradition is when I make them watch an old movie with us. This is tantamount to sitting in an ant pile as far as they are concerned. Last year we went on a movie binge during the holiday season. My husband picked out White Christmas. He remembered enjoying that from his childhood. I picked out The Bishop's Wife, Alistair Sim's version of The Christmas Carol, and It's A Wonderful Life. The kids hated It's A Wonderful Life with a passion. They thought it was too dark and dramatic, I guess. They also didn't like The Christmas Carol—too grim a version. It's hard not to like The Bishop's Wife, but to my astonishment, they loved White Christmas the best. I thought I was going to scream if I had to listen to the Sisters, Sisters song one more time, but that was the movie several months later that the kids mentioned as being their favorite. They'd loved the old general, were touched by his plight and his friends' rescue of him. They wanted to watch it again. I re-watched the movie and found myself seeing it through their eyes. It is a good movie. It has all the elements of the holiday season: caring friends, loyal family, a little romance. I'm so glad I saw the movie again. I hope I see the whole holiday season through my kids' eyes this year—it's sure to be a holiday to remember. And that's just the way it should be.

~*~

Fab books: MAMA MAKES UP HER MIND by Bailey White is warm-hearted short story fun, perfect for those who don't have time to read an entire book at once-- though you just might read all of Ms. White's wonderful stories in one sitting! Also, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows for wonderful, traditional fare.

Holiday movie time: The Leonard Family holiday pick is in! We will head out to the movies over Thanksgiving break to see A CHRISTMAS CAROL in 3D animation with Jim Carrey as the redoubtable Scrooge! Over Thanksgiving last year, we saw MARLEY AND ME, which the kids despised despite loving the book (no grim sadness for my family at the holidays)!, They preferred FOUR CHRISTMASES with Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn (much happier). We can't wait for the Christmas ghosts in 3D! It should be fun!

Wise words: “You’ll never get what you want if you can’t be happy for someone else who gets it.” Joyce Meyer

Comment any time during the month of November to be eligible for the drawing of three five dollar Amazon e-certs, chosen by Fresh Fiction! Happy holiday season to one and all—best wishes for joyous times with friends and family!

Until next time, Tina Leonard

Tina Leonard has a publishing history of more than forty projects. With sales of over a million books, she is also a Bookscan and Borders bestselling author. Tina enjoys family, friends, researching projects, and a good glass of wine when she's not on deadline. Her November release, A COWBOY FROM CHRISTMAS PAST, will be in stores any day! You can find out more about Tina at www.tinaleonard.com.

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