What's your favorite holiday?

Signing books at WriterFest in Nashville.

This fall has been exhausting in the best possible way. My book released in mid-September, which made August through October a non-stop whirlwind.

Then there was Halloween. And now Thanksgiving. And then there will be Christmas. And I am very tired.

Correct me if I’m wrong—I did some googling, but that’s about all the effort I had the bandwidth for—but no other country in the world has so many major holidays crammed together at the end of the year like this. Canada does Thanksgiving and Halloween before Christmas, but their Thanksgiving is in October also, so they get a nice long break before Christmas and New Years.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the holidays. I love the pageantry and the decorations and the getting together with family and friends. I even enjoy wrapping gifts. It’s just a lot of planning and preparation and I have done none of it this year. I haven’t purchased even one Christmas gift. I haven’t thought about Christmas cards. I feel like I barely made it to Thanksgiving.

Working from my parents’ house with Aang.

I had a book festival in Louisville two weeks ago and one in Nashville just last weekend. I literally packed up for Thanksgiving the day after the Nashville fest and left that afternoon. With two giant cats in tow. I worked from my parents’ house Monday through Wednesday and Dean drove down after work that night.

As I write this, it’s Thanksgiving and I think I might finally be able to start unwinding. At least a little bit.

I was talking to my dad as we waited for Dean to get in and mentioned that I hadn’t done any Christmas shopping and felt really behind this year. He said that was one reason Thanksgiving is his favorite holiday. Although he enjoyed giving and receiving gifts, he liked that there was no pressure to do that on Thanksgiving. You just gathered together, had a meal and enjoyed the company of your family. No one ended up disappointed that they didn’t get what they wanted and no one was anxious that someone didn’t like what they’d given. It was just hanging out, cooking, and eating.

I like that. I’d never looked at it that way before. To me, Thanksgiving had always been the ‘warm up’ holiday to Christmas. It was convenient to have when you swap family visits to keep things fair—Dean and I do Christmas with my family, Thanksgiving with his one year, then switch the next—but it never seemed like as big a deal to me. Especially this year, when it all seemed to be coming much too fast on thing right on top of the other.

But I like that. A time to gather, drink wine, and eat warm bread together. And with everything moving so quickly and time seeming so short, it is nice to have one more excuse to get together with the people you care about.

Do you have a favorite holiday? If so, why would you say it’s the best?