Nod to November

November 4, 2009 | My Jottings

I have a good friend who is always smiling and usually quite cheerful, but he dreads the coming of November. He says he doesn’t like the eleventh month because the creeping cold, the bare trees, loss of color and resulting bleakness, the shorter, darker days, bring on some depression for him. For my friend, gray Novembers usher in a sort of gray living.

I understand his feelings, and can relate somewhat. January always seems to be my bleakest month, because in northern Minnesota it’s often so bitterly cold by then. Christmas is gone, long months of cold and dark are looming, and the wind-chill hurts. The happiest thing about January for me is the birthday of my middle daughter Carolyn. 🙂

But this post is about November. Here’s what November means to me…

1.  Thanksgiving, of course. Turkey, stuffing, tryptophan.

2.  The month my father died

3.  Vivienne‘s 4th birthday

4.  Carey‘s birthday

5.  Gail’s birthday

6.  Vague memories of my first wedding when I was a mere eighteen years old, in a tiny wayside chapel in Rough and Ready, California

7.  Soups simmering

8.  Attempts at baking homemade breads and rolls

9.  Snowbird daydreams

10. Decorating for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving

11. Time to buy our yearly two new Christmas CDs to add to our collection

12. Mukluks always out, sitting by the back door

13. Patience, waiting, hoping

14. Checking the weather report before leaving the house

15. Thanking God for remote car starters

16. A furnace that hardly ever goes off now

17. Gale warnings on Lake Superior, made famous by Gordon Lightfoot’s song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”

18.  Taking 1 Thessalonians 5:18 very seriously, as if right now my life depended on it: “give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

What does November mean to you?