Wednesday, November 21, 2012

And to All, a Good Night

Thanksgiving is my mother's favorite holiday. I could actually take it or leave it, but it is nice in that it's not a Jewish holiday, as the Jewish holidays come with all kinds of ritual obligations and restrictions, and it's an American holiday that's secular enough for even religious Jews to take part it in. Some Jews don't celebrate Halloween, which just sucks for them, as Halloween is my favorite holiday. When I was very young I went to an Orthodox day school where everyone was more religious than me, and I was disappointed that there were no Halloween decorations like in public schools, so I had to take comfort at the skeleton over the letter"S" in our letter chart and consider it my own decoration. But even Orthodox schools, which didn't necessarily take off for Christmas (a lot of yeshivas take a week off in January), took off for Thanksgiving because the kids' parents would be off from work so it made sense. I grew up with a mix of secular and religious culture that I'm very proud of.

Thanksgiving is about watching the parade and eating turkey. Also it's about judging how bored Santa looks when he shows up at 11:58 in front of Macy's. The last couple years have been good but it can vary. He's been on that float I don't know, at least four hours, and it's often drizzling or snowing. And he can't look NOT jolly for any part of it, unlike the rest of the people on the floats. So think about that when you're watching the parade, WHICH YOU SHOULD BE.

Georgiana in the Wolf, in more pertinent news, should be out the second week of December, hopefully before that. Amazon's Createspace is sending a proof on Monday, which will no doubt have some problems, but if there aren't too many problems the second proof won't take long. I was shooting for December 1st but there's always unexpected delays, like your second copyeditor is out doing Hurricane Sandy relief and your graphic designer needs a new computer. Watch this place for giveaways. The Knights of Derbyshire made it into Kindle Select so it will be free for 5 days in December.

Happy Thanksgiving! 

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