Poor November. It used to have a purpose. There was football, Thanksgiving, and a respectable amount of time to recover from Halloween before anyone started talking about Christmas.
Not anymore.
Now November is basically December with a turkey in the middle.
Somewhere between putting away the Halloween decorations and thawing the Thanksgiving turkey, we’re expected to take the family Christmas card photo, attend charity events, go to football games, start Christmas shopping, decorate the house and respond to holiday party invitations that begin arriving before we’ve finished the Halloween candy.
November isn’t a month. It’s a month-long game of “What am I forgetting?”
The Christmas card alone can consume a good portion of it. First, you have to find one evening when every member of the family is available, which becomes nearly impossible once your children are old enough to have their own schedules and opinions. Then there are the outfits. Everyone needs to coordinate without looking coordinated, which apparently means assembling five people in varying shades of beige and blue and pretending it happened naturally.
Then comes the photo shoot, where someone is irritated, someone hates what they’re wearing, someone asks how much longer this is going to take, and the dog is the only one genuinely happy to be there. If you get one photo where everyone’s eyes are open and nobody looks actively annoyed, you’ve succeeded.
A week later, a beautiful card arrives in everyone’s mailbox suggesting your family spends its free time standing peacefully together in flattering light. Nobody needs to know what happened five minutes before that picture was taken.
While you’re creating this fictional version of family life, Thanksgiving negotiations are underway. Who’s hosting? What time are we eating? Who’s bringing what? Is it lunch or dinner? And why does coordinating one meal require a text thread longer than the Constitution?
Every family also has dishes that cannot be touched. Someone can suggest a new recipe, but replacing the traditional mashed potatoes your family has eaten since 1996 will be treated as an act of aggression. Thanksgiving is not the time for culinary innovation. Bring the same pecan-topped sweet potato soufflé you’ve brought for 20 years and nobody gets hurt.
The kids’ table has changed, too. The children who once needed their turkey cut into tiny pieces are now coming home from college with restaurant recommendations, opinions about cocktails, and surprisingly sophisticated tastes. They have apartments, jobs and credit cards. They are practically adults.
Yet they still walk into the kitchen, open a fully stocked refrigerator and ask, “Do we have anything to eat?”
Of course, Christmas has no intention of waiting its turn.
Black Friday now seems to begin around November 3, and my inbox spends the rest of the month warning me that THIS IS MY LAST CHANCE to save 30% on something I didn’t know I needed. Christmas lights start appearing on Park Cities houses before the Thanksgiving turkey has been ordered, and holiday parties begin while there are still pumpkins on the porch. At this point, Thanksgiving is basically just trying not to get run over by Christmas.
By Thanksgiving Day, we’ve coordinated schedules, taken the family photo, ordered the cards, planned the meal, attended the events, started shopping and somehow transitioned the house from pumpkins to Christmas trees.
Then we finally sit down, eat too much and make the rookie mistake of thinking we can relax.
Until someone asks the most terrifying question of November:
“So, are you ready for Christmas?”
Martha Jackson, host of The Bubble Lounge Podcast, has lived in University Park for 20 years. She’s passionate about connecting with fellow moms, supporting local businesses, and finding humor in the chaos. You can find her at bubblelounge.net and on Instagram @bubbleloungepodcast.
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