Later this week families and friends all across the country will gather for a day of delicious food, fellowship and fun. Hopefully, I mean — the historic Thanksgiving landscape is littered with stories of half-baked turkeys, overserved relatives and days that simply turned disastrous.
And with that scenario in mind I welcome us all to the grand season of hope. Because that’s the reason for the season right? You hope everything tastes great, you hope everybody’s travels are safe and uneventful, you hope that certain things will be under the tree Christmas morning, you hope I’m going to eventually make it interesting.
The interesting point is that hope never goes out of season. We are constantly hoping for stuff, it’s just that this time of year often puts a finer point on it.
Wasn’t Halloween just a few weeks ago?
With every spotted porch light comes a moment of hope as myriad kids portraying pirates, princesses and Pokémon trudge toward it. With every cry of “trick or treat,” comes another element of hope.
Once the gathering of candy has concluded and the bag of treats is about to be spilled for inspection, does not that moment also shroud itself in hope? Chocolate is a given. Red licorice is a given. Even fresh fruit, albeit disappointing, is a given. Everybody knows what those things taste like.
But what about this modern candy and its nebulously flavored palette? I picked up a piece of candy labeled as “blue raspberry” flavored, and I could only hope to think what it was going to taste like.
Halloween is quite good at trafficking hope — but nothing like the Powerball drawing drawings earlier this month.
For me, lottery drawings evoke more of an “imagine what-if” vibe, but by nature they too, traffick in hope. We go through most of our lives dodging peril with a “that won’t ever happen to me” kind of attitude. But, bump up any given lottery jackpot close to a billion dollars and that phrase switches to “hey, why not me?” really quickly. Even though the payout has grown, odds of winning haven’t changed. But “piles of money” hope has a way of blurring the lines separating reality and fantasy.
And speaking of hope, blurring lines, and messing with someone’s mind, can I publish one more person’s opinion on changing into and out of daylight saving time? Actually, the “person” is our dog and although he hasn’t said so, I can tell he isn’t happy this week. This semiannual time change was just the most recent time in his life where nobody gave him a good reason for feeding him an hour later than yesterday. Being a dog with pretty regulated daily rhythms, where walks are regularly taken, meals are regularly served, poops are taken systematically, and bedtime is non-negotiable, unexplained variances cause anxiety. Throughout the year, because we stick to a routine, his hopes for diet, exercise, and rest are met with timely precision. These governmentally directed moments of change are difficult enough on us — my friends, my family, and everybody I meet the week of the time change complain about it, adjust eventually, and move on. Our poor pets are relegated to once again trafficking in the hope that the guy who provides the eats and the walks and goes to bed on time, even if he won’t explain why, will at least stop messing up the routine.
My suggestion then is that in dealing with hope, preparation is key. Like Halloween candy, playing the lottery, and owning a pet, be prepared.
Manage your expectations this holiday season, especially those that involve hope.