Fake and True

Dog walk, November 13

Walking Patsy on these autumn-dark evenings, I’ve already seen two Christmas trees in windows—the first on Monday, November 12, the second on Tuesday. Nothing last night, though Au Bon Pain was playing Christmas music yesterday at lunchtime. Tomorrow, November 16 (I checked), that radio station will start playing my least favorite kind of holiday music 24/7 through December 25. Just hear those sleigh bells ringin’.

There’s still some gold and rust and green jittering on the trees this afternoon, and the sky has unfurled a tightly woven blanket over the sun. I biked to work today despite the turn toward cold. It’s not even late fall, let alone Christmas—it’s just fall.

On Saturday my brother and sister and some of their family members will come for dinner at D’s house, as he and I will be in London next week. (Fortuitously enough, I happened upon a vegan restaurant hosting a Thanksgiving dinner on the 22nd—who knew?—so that's where you'll find us.) 

Saturday's party here will be our Fakesgiving—a term I learned yesterday, and love—with veggie pot pies, baby-kale salad, baked apples with mincemeat, and some other surprises in the works. This will be the first Thanksgiving since Dad’s death, and though he hadn’t attended in at least a couple of years anyway, I wanted to facilitate some sort of coming-together of kin. It’s a chance to say, in a way that in fact can be more celebratory than mournful: This is what it’s like now.

Christmas-creep is the opposite of now.