Today is November 15. With Thanksgiving still a week away, I have not yet purchased a turkey, let alone defrosted, roasted, or eaten one. I have not made up every bed, fold out couch, air mattress, and camping cot on the property in anticipation of family coming over the river and through the woods. I have not yet sung We Gather Together in sacrament meeting. (It is one of my all-time favorite hymns; the ward music chairman picks it once a year, if I'm lucky.) I am wearing an orange shirt, living in a house bedecked with pumpkins and pilgrims and handcrafted folkart that reminds me to be grateful. And yet, I hold in my hand a Christmas card.

A. Christmas. Card. And, no, it is not from Walmart or Target or any of the other retailers who were peddling Christmas trees a couple of weeks before I thought to get out the scarecrows. It is from a woman I have known and loved for years and always considered sane. Until now. I noted (through tears) that she wrote the poem on it herself, and I have no doubt it will touch my heart in, say, ten days or so. This afternoon it was all I could do not to toss it in the grinder with the fresh cranberries.

I feel very much like the turkey in this popular cartoon. I love Christmas. I really do. I've published stories of my own Christmas miracles two years in a row now. Perhaps, after Thanksgiving, I'll tell you all about them.