Anticipation

October 1st is great. In and of itself. Pumpkins and cornstalks, orange twinkly lights and fall candles.

But even more great because it means . . . it’s coming.

IT.

All of it!

Autumn air, gorgeous leaves, candle-lit jack-o-lanterns, kids running from door-to-door – costumed and giggling. Pumpkin pies, turkey-trots, food a million times better than any other food because it’s all steeped in tradition and surrounded by the events it’s made for – family Thanksgiving feasts, neighborhood treat deliveries, flour-covered kids making the first ginger-bread men of the season.

Oct. 1st means that it won’t be too much longer before homes and neighborhoods take on the magic that can only come from glittering white and colored Christmas lights. It means we’ll soon be locking our master-bedroom closet because presents will be getting stored there and that I’ll daily scramble to think of “Christmassy” activities to put in our little December advent boxes.

October 1st means that three months of incredible happiness, tradition, and memory-making are ahead.

Two weeks ago our backyard trees still looked like this:

But, with a day or two of wind and rain (along with some tree-branch shaking from the kids) every last leaf was on the ground – stacked into forts and raked into jumping piles -- within a matter of days.

With the end of October, despite the fact that my favorite parts still lie ahead, I felt a bit of panic. Some of the moments I’d been waiting for had actually come – and gone. The best ones were getting even closer. And while I want them to come . . . I want them to come more slowly. I don’t want them over. And part of the goodness of it all is just . . . the anticipation.

But, as if to show that this season is serious about hurtling forward, snow arrived Sunday morning, and, along with it, the following conversation:

Goldie: “Daisy! You can’t keep singing Christmas music! It’s not time yet! Then it won’t be special!”
Daisy: “I can’t help it!”
Goldie: “We have to wait ‘til December 1st.”
Daisy: “No, Goldie, remember how mom said she used to always start listening to it the night before Thanksgiving? When she and her sisters were making pies?”
Goldie: “Oh yah!”
Daisy: “Maybe we should do that. I know how to make pumpkin pie now and you can make that pudding pie you made once.”

It’s coming all right. I can’t wait!

Only, as I said: Yes, I can wait! Slowwww down!

Here are a few last pictures from October:

And, a hundred-million from the cell phone (something like that):