I was looking for reading socks, which are essentially slippers, at B&N when a former employee approached and asked, “May I help you?”  

We both giggled.  I am startled to say that, after a certain age, I have become a “character.”  I famously have been known to mistake bookstore customers for bookstore employees.  “Could you help me find such-and-such a book?” They are always delighted to assist me.

This cracks up the former employee. “Are you trying to put people out of work?”

“Oh, well, I couldn’t find anyone on the floor,” I say vaguely. 

The Christmas cards are on the display tables, but I’m not thinking about the holidays.  And then… “What are you doing for the holidays?” he asked.

I blanched.  I panicked.  Oh no!  The holidays? Already?  “Oh, we’re having a turkey,” I said.  That, I find, covers Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Thanksgiving is about food, and Christmas is also about food.  Actually, Christmas is also about books:  we go to the store and each pick out a book to read on the holiday.

Most people travel, if only to Nebraska or some adjoining state.  Not us.  We stay home.  And I found myself saying inappropriately, “Well, we don’t travel because everybody’s dead.”  Then I gripped his arm.  “Sorry, I should not have said that.” 

And so I told him about the poinsettia greenhouse. That is my most cherished Thanksgiving memory.  After our turkey dinner, the hostess drove us to a vast greenhouse on the outskirts of town. (She knew the proprietor.) It was filled with what looked to me like acres of pink, red, and white poinsettias.  It was more beautiful than some historic gardens I have visited.

As for Christmas, well… That’s still far away.  But I may try to find Zoom book groups to take my mind off that perfectionist holiday where you must prove yourself by making your own wreath (I flunked the adult ed class), assembling a ginger bread house, trimming the tree, and learning the lyrics to the Christmas carols you used to know.