Walking in my winter underwear....

This is the first holiday season without my dad, and I am feeling vehklempt about it. All kidding aside, I really am feeling a void as the nonstop Christmas music and cheap marketing ploys start to flood everything. Thanksgiving was one of his favorite holidays, mainly because it centers around food, football, and lacks commercialism as much as any holiday can.

For a skinny man with no discernible ass or even the trace of a belly, he could eat pounds of dressing, (or stuffing, depending on your geography); he was the only other member of my family who enjoyed cranberry sauce as much as I do. I once ate an entire can. And if you ever try to feed me real cranberry sauce, I will scoff at you. If it doesn't make that "zoosh" sound coming out of the can and have the can ridges, I simply cannot eat it. I also identify with his take on Thanksgiving because you eat, watch football, and nap. Perfect holiday. No presents, no decoration really, and it's just a day to simply give thanks. What a concept.

How often do we really stop to think about our blessings? Whether you believe in God, Yahweh, Allah, or worship your plates and socks, someone provided everything we love. I personally am on Team God, and I, too, am guilty of taking things for granted and not really stepping back to admire and appreciate everything I have. To that end, I am thankful for, and there is literally no order to this:

1. Memories. I have a very happy life at present, but I also have some amazing memories that sustain me through darker times. I know, without a doubt, that I have loved and been loved. I have never stifled laughter or love, and even though it has not always ended well, I wouldn't trade any decision I've ever made toward either.

I have fallen down hills, out of shopping carts, sung my heart out at karaoke, kissed the wrong boys, been a bridesmaid and a bride, said stupid things, done stupid things, been carried to bed by my father singing Elvis songs to me, and made a perfect ass of myself being forced into singing show tunes in a talent competition.

I have yelled at a New Jersey gas station attendant, "I GOT IT," until I realized you can't pump your own gas in New Jersey, dug my car out of the snow three times in one day, said "No, thank you," to an offer of carrying a baby for a polygamist couple, and smelled my mother's Pond's cream to the point of thinking it a Pavlovian tool for inducing sleep and safety.

2. Family, blood, created, in-law, and any other kind that drives you SO crazy, you devise ingenious plots to kill them, bury them, and make it look like an accident, only after you've secured an air-tight alibi. This is not to be confused with family that you've been forced to deal with, like a certain psycho former in-law I was happy to bid adieu. No, these are the people you love.

The basic bottom line is, in a family, everyone will always have an opinion about what you need to do and how they know best. I'm no better. Looking from the outside into a situation is the easiest place to be. But, God bless Atticus Finch and my mangled remembrance, "do not judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes." It's the simplest thing to remember and the hardest thing to put into practice. 'Tis the season to be nonjudgmental....I will try my best, because I know.....that I have......

3. Stephen Durand Smith, a.k.a. "Smitty," a.k.a. "Woofa Johnson," a.k.a. "Turd Ferguson," and on and on..
I somewhat understand the term "hit the jackpot." I qualify it because clearly, I've never actually hit a lottery jackpot, but I'm still the luckiest person who ever set foot on the ground. Our 4-year anniversary is 11/25, Thanksgiving, ironically, and I'm still fairly gobsmacked by being Mrs. Emily Smith.

This is not a nauseating story, we have our moments, I can assure you. In the past year, in fact, which may have been the most challenging of our marriage other than the first, we have gone through a lot of stuff. My father died, his job has been ridiculously demanding, I've been sick for 2 months at a time, I had surgery and couldn't poop for 6 days and didn't even know that could happen, yes, it can, and you must be hospitalized.....but we never once lost sight of our love for each other, our mutual commitment to our marriage, and the fact that we would rather spend time with one another than anyone else.

Before you all vomit in your mouths and stop reading, I offer you this. Everyone deserves a partner, best friend, protector, and someone that not only makes you weak in the knees with their kiss, but their dizzying knowledge of bills and re-financed mortgages really blows your socks off. Everything is not fun and sexy and exciting all the time. But if you have that person that you know has your back in the event of a lay-off, family feud, or zombie apocalypse, you are golden.

Speaking of golden, in honor of my dad, I leave you with this:
Robert Frost, "Nothing Gold Can Stay"

"Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay"