...Home is for the holidays...

...unless, of course, you work for some big retailers like Target, WalMart and others.

Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth – circa 1975 – Thanksgiving day was a wonder at my house. As a Southern belle, my mother was genetically engineered to be a fabulous cook, and Thanksgiving was her canvas as surely Michelangelo’s was the Sistine Chapel.

Where he worked in paints and marble, my mother worked in sweet potatoes, cranberries and pound cake. She would start early in the morning before my brother and I were out of bed. I could hear heavy pots being lifted onto the stove, and baking pans being rattled in the cabinets under the kitchen counters. There was cornbread to be made, eggs to be boiled, gravy to be simmered and “if I find out who has been in the marshmallows I bought for the Ambrosia salad, I will skin him or her alive!”

Items that were usually relegated to the “seen and not touched” category (also known as the “touch and be murdered” division) suddenly were within reach. Her wedding china, silver and crystal – Cherokee Rose by Tiffin – came out of the cabinets where the spent the other 364 days of the year in silent array. Creamy linen tablecloths edged in hand-embroidered cutwork were beautifully draped over the dining room table, and matching napkins were folded onto the dinner plates. Crisp diagonally-cut stalks of celery were placed in a cut-glass dish that was made for that sole purpose, and the cranberry jelly slid onto pale-pink carnival glass that complimented the quivering deep-red roll.

The only thing more exciting than the preparation was the final product. A perfectly browned turkey, with giblet gravy. Collard greens cooked with pork that left an iridescent shimmer to the pot liquor. Sweet potatoes with brown sugar and pecans. The aforementioned Ambrosia – with most of the marshmallows intact – elegantly served in crystal parfait glasses. Cranberry jelly, celery, olives and tiny little sweet gherkin pickles. The dreaded (at least to me; it’s never been a favorite) green bean casserole. Dressing (this was the south, after all), home made biscuits and could you please pass the red pepper jelly? For dessert – home made sour-cream pound cake, Mrs Riley's cinnamon chocolate cake and if you were really lucky, vanilla wafer cake (email me for the recipes).

And afterwards? Bliss. Over-stuffed, sugar-intoxicated, down home bliss.

Once one was semi-mobile again, the kitchen was duly cleaned, leftovers stored, and precious pieces of glass and silver were returned to their posts. I imagine there was something on television to watch; I seem to remember “The Wizard of Oz” always being on around that time. I would read, my brother would annoy me and my dad would do whatever it was dads did back them. Mom would start addressing Christmas cards, and make phone calls to family members.

But wait! Something is missing! What is it…what could it be? Oh – I know! No rushing to the mall! No marking sale items in the latest MegaLoMart circular! No pre-battle mapping of parking spaces, back roads and “secret” mall entrances! And yet – God knows how – Christmas came, and most everything on our carefully printed wish lists managed to find its way under the tree.

Today, as if that revolting concept of “Black Friday” is not enough, Target, Macy’s, Best Buy and Kohl’s will be opening at midnight, and WalMart (gah!) will be opening at 10PM Thanksgiving evening. Apparently, the idea of hordes of slavering people at 4AM Friday was not enough. Now it’s required that retail employees (one of which I have been more than once during my lifetime) give up part of their Thanksgiving day in order to get in some sleep before being assaulted by brainwashed consumers eager to buy whatever foreign-made crap that can’t wait until a decent hour to be purchased.

Brian Dunn, the chief executive of Best Buy, said that the midnight opening “became an operating imperative for us” after competitors moved their openings back. “I feel terrible,” he said.

Mr Dunn – here’s a suggestion. If you feel so gosh-darned “bad” about the situation, howzabout oh...NOT JOINING IN?!?! Please realize that “Christmas Creep” is just that…creepy. Take a cue from Nordstrom and stop all this nonsense. One holiday at time, please.

Here, Brian…have a piece of vanilla wafer cake, take off your shoes, loosen your belt a notch and slow down. But if you break a piece of my mom’s china, you’ll wish you were on a cashier stand at 10PM.