Melancholia

This is my least favorite time of year. I love the weather, but I hate the holiday season. Of course, there are things I like (the Samuel Adams Winter Collection will be discussed at length in a later post) about this time of year, but most of your big gathering holidays kind of suck. It’s not just these two in general, or even the fact that there are holidays, it’s the general… I don’t know, the changes in life kind of suck.

One of the things I miss most about my father’s side grandmother (Nana) being gone is that every year at Thanksgiving, she made homemade stuffing, and because she knew that’s how I liked it, she always let it stay in just a little too long so the edges of each patty were crispy. My aunt now makes the stuffing, but she doesn’t let it get a little crispy.

She also made great custard. The drinkable kind, not the solid sort. We make it at the house for holidays, but maybe we’re not doing things right, or maybe it’s because we’re not using old cast iron cookware, or maybe it’s just because it’s not her making it, but it doesn’t taste the same.

Nothing every is as good as it was when you were younger, I guess. The big family get-togethers have dwindled in number, because everyone has jobs that work them strange hours and the old folks have been dying off. Sure we get together and me and my dad play Guitar Hero III with my cousin, and while that is a lot of fun, it’s just… to go back to the common refrain, not the same.

Anyway, now that I’ve made myself cry, I’ll go watch the rest of the football game (one of the few good new traditions is the Thursday Night Thanksgiving game on the NFL Network) and drink some beer to try and keep the blues at bay. Y’all kids be good, and hug your parents and grandparents extra hard tonight.

Tags: melancholy, posts that made me cry while writing them, thanksgiving