Can you smell the gravy?

It is cold outside.

Taking the furry assassin out for the morning walk was an exercise in how to get cold and still get through the whole route without pushing myself so hard that I faint.

This time of year makes my bear-like soul think of warm hibernation near a stack of good books and a fireplace that perpetually refills itself and a nice hot mug of spiced cider or hot chocolate. Of course, I have no real proof that is what bears do when they hibernate but I have my suspicions.

We are starting the 'who is hosting the dinner' conversations that typically surround this time of year. While it seems like Thanksgiving is far away, only men truly believe that 23 days is sufficient time to plan, prepare for and carry out a humongous family dinner with a perfect turkey and gravy like on tv.

Women, however, know the truth. Twenty-three days is crunch time. Both for the abs and for the meal planning. In order to justify the day off, the dinner rolls and the gravy, a woman must exercise 73 hours a day and make practice batches of gravy for which the resident canine will be slavishly and eternally grateful.

Dogs don't care, they just love gravy. Unless it is black and on fire. I believe even their claw draws a line in the sand at that point.

Then there is the eternal struggle of how much turkey is just too much turkey. We aren't talking consumption yet, we are talking purchasing. Although the attendees have dwindled in number over the last few years with the realities of life setting in and moving people ever further from the dinner table, we still buy a turkey big enough to virtually guarantee that turkey will be part of every lunch and dinner for at least 3 full days.

I voraciously search for the menu items which will add just the perfect touch to our traditional fare of turkey and dressing, fried okra, green bean casserole, homemade mashed potatoes and the added blessing of the most wonderful gravy mankind has ever eaten at the hands of woman kind. This is the kind of creamy, fluid and smooth gravy that I am quite sure was what Adam REALLY ate in the Garden of Eden. (ladies, one word here: MIXER)

Just think about that hot, fragrant elixer of holiday joy cascading down over the mountain of mashed potatoes and pooling at the edge of your dinner roll like hot and giblety lava. Think about it. What man gets really gets that excited and worked up about eating a piece of FRUIT no matter how forbidden it has been declared. Then again, perhaps the apple had caramel gravy on top? I can see that attracting attention...

The carnivores at our mealtimes are salivating so much before the blessing on the food that 'sneaking' from the kitchen has already been declared an official sport in our household. Only when the women decide that enough encroachment over the line of scrimmage has occured, and the cries of 'foul' begin, are the starving men are ushered from the kitchen in full pout mode to rot in front of the bowl games and instant replays until halftime and the blessing are declared.

Then, there are the hot dinner rolls that become guided missiles during the meal as hapless guests, unfamiliar with traditional behavior, struggle to understand why bread is flying, normally sane people are wearing olives on their fingertips and someone is desperately trying to prevent choking while laughing with a mouthful of food at the latest 'naughty' holiday humor that has been shared under the breath of an adult who really should know better but told the joke anyway.

Mostly, the holidays are about reveling in each others' company in a familiar and easy way that bypasses the angst of life and returns us to a time where we can all just be ourselves without the expectations of the world rushing the play before the whistle sounds.

Every family is different and every family creates their own traditions. Some are a hodge-podge of the things that each spouse brings from their home life as a child. Others are hand crafted from the bits and pieces of observational moments that are lifted from the lives of people we wish we'd been related to, but weren't.

Either way, homespun from years of hand-me-down practices or fashioned from all new components, family gatherings have a way of bringing out elements of your personality that can be good or bad, depending upon how you were raised.

All I know is, there is a sort of easy familiarity in sitting down to the table with hot yeast rolls made from Sister Raveston's recipe, even though only a couple of people there even know who she was, eating the casserole that is more taco than turkey, sharing the life-stories we have all heard a hundred times but want to hear all over again simply because it means 'home'.

May your upcoming thanksgiving be filled with remembrances of all things good in your life.

And, I hope you have plenty of gravy.