Eat the Pie

Every year I spend more time preparing for each individual holiday. And every year they arrive as if from nowhere. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I am ready. Even at this very moment, I am readying for my annual dessert breakfast: elbows deep in flour, ovens churning out sugary delights, the smell of butter in the air.

A typical Thanksgiving Dessert Breakfast spread

My Aunt Linda loved to bake. On Christmas Day, she would set fancy plates with assortments of no less than ten types of Christmas cookies she’d made. I would search out the chocolate chip cookies, occasionally finding satisfaction in one of the less kid-friendly cookies, my range of food exploration only developing at that time.

I think perhaps we were a lot alike. She found pleasure in baking for others, as I do. My Thanksgiving dessert breakfast was birthed from conversations she and my mother shared every Thanksgiving morning. They would sneak a piece of pie and eat it over the phone together, knowing that moment, breakfast time, was the right time to indulge because later in the evening they wouldn’t want it.

In the last months of her life, Aunt Linda didn’t lose her joy for baking for others, in fact, it only increased. Regardless of being robbed the ability to taste her creations, she continued, showing love in the best way she knew how—even if it wouldn’t benefit her at all. I think sometimes about what it would be like if she were still here now. Would we share recipes as we did when I was first married? Bake together? Eat pie together? Or would we simply be able to be together, and that would be enough?

A humbler Thanksgiving breakfast, among the first that included the rest of the family

Holidays and their traditions can be a thing of comfort for most, a thing of obligation for some, a thing of pain for many, and a mixed bag for pretty much everyone.

The holidays can also bring about regret. For decisions we’ve made. For the lack of time we spent with, or the things we didn’t say to, someone. For the place we find ourselves in life.

The older we get, these possibilities only maximize.

The last few months of this year, I have been focusing on being content. It’s so easy to miss what is right in front of you if you are looking beyond.

So, this Thanksgiving I hope you will also find contentment in what is before you. That you’ll eat the pie. That you’ll smile for the cheesy family pictures. That you’ll sing the Christmas carols whose words don’t ever change. And that in doing so, these days will have less of a shadow and more of the magical glow that only this time of the year can create.