Leaf peeping season is over for another year as we all begin the annual cleanup of all those once-glorious leaves that are now simply brown and piled up on the ground. The year moves on. This morning we awoke to frost but also to a wonderful clear day with bright blue skies and puffy white clouds. From my office window I can see whitecaps on the water and an occasional lobster boat, but the pleasure boats have long since been hauled out until next spring.
As I’ve mentioned before, fall has never been my favorite season. I love summer and can tolerate winter and always wish we could move from mid-October directly to winter, thus avoiding the unpredictable weather of late autumn. On the other hand, I’d hate to miss Thanksgiving, which is such a great holiday. I’m originally from Massachusetts, where Thanksgiving is a really big deal. It’s refreshing, isn’t it, to have a holiday that has no agenda except getting together with friends and family.
Country fair season has ended in Maine, but now churches and communities are running harvest fairs and will soon be sponsoring holiday fairs. These are always fun….tables filled with baked goods, crafts, wreaths, warm knitted sweaters and mittens, and plenty of other goodies. If you are coming to Maine in the next few weeks, be sure to watch for these fairs as they are a great way to start your holiday shopping and meet some locals at the same time. Wherever you are, enjoy the season.
Tag: Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving in Maine
Although it feels more like Christmas, complete with blustery winds and snow falling, we’re just a little more than a day away from Thanksgiving. It’s my personal favorite holiday, largely because there is no agenda other than family, friends, and good things to eat.
New Englanders tend to stick to a traditional menu, parts of which–squash, for example–date back to that first Thanksgiving long ago. There was wild turkey as well, although it’s likely that the centerpiece of the feast was venison. With plenty of root vegetables and perhaps an early version of cranberry sauce (did you know that the Pilgrims called the berries “crane-berries” because they thought the flowering plant looked like a crane?) perhaps that first Thanksgiving might have looked quite familiar to us. There were guests, too, as the Pilgrims welcomed the friendly Wampanoag Native Americans who had helped them so much during those first few years.
Here on my small Maine island, we’re bundling up and getting ready to welcome company tomorrow. I hope you, too, have a great day on Thursday with friends and family. Christmas shopping can wait, no matter what the ads say……enjoy the moment!
October’s End
October is ending and November is just hours away. But first the ghosts and goblins come calling and a brave few will venture down our long driveway. I think they enjoy being a little scared as they wander beneath the trees and head toward the porch light. And they always head home happy with plenty of candy in their bags. It will be a chilly evening here on my small Maine island, and I’m remembering how much I hated having to bundle up in a coat over my costume when I was a kid. However, plenty of candy makes up for a lot of things and at least it’s not snowing as it was two years ago tonight when we all had to shovel out before the trick or treating could begin. Have a safe and happy Halloween…..and then, on to Thanksgiving!