Happy Thanksgiving y'all.

This is the start of four glorious days off - four days that I can do whatever the heck I want. This afternoon I'm going to the Holloway compound for some encounters with tryptophan goodness. Might even make some Moravian pumpkin bread this afternoon for the occasion - if I can be so motivated.

This is really the time of year when my Moravianness (if that can be a true state of existence) comes out. Not the religious part, mind you - as I have nearly zero tolerance for most organized religion - especially the protestant variety.

No - it's the part that loves the candles and the candle tea and lovefeast buns and ancient hymns. The part that enjoys being awakened by a brass band in the wee hours of the morning during Christmas and Easter. The part that understands that Moravian coffee is a separate food group. The part that pretty much likes everything but the religious part.

I'm not sure I ever believed in the doctrine of the Moravian church - or any church for that matter - at least not since my 3rd grade Sunday School teacher told me my cat wasn't going to heaven.

Horrible woman. I hope she's swarmed by angel cats when she gets to the pearly gates.

But it's the traditions of Moravians that are so ingrained in me that it feels like home. 'Course - there's no Moravian church within a few hundred miles so even if I was so inclined to go (and the lovefeast buns didn't spontaneously combust in horror when I walked through the door)I couldn't.

I remember being little and learning to make the Moravian molasses cookies with my Aunt Ruby. She could roll those things thinner than anybody - and of course hers were better than anything you could get at the store.

Not that you could get them in the store back then...

But this is the time of year that my mom and my Aunt Ora Mae (that's her real name, I swear)would pull their old Moravian dresses out of mothballs to serve in costume at the Candle Tea. I wasn't old enough to be a diener or such and thus couldn't dress up (perhaps this explains my fascination with wearing 17th and 18th century clothing to work - repressed childhood fantasies...)

But by golly I learned how to make the cookies and candles! We would pour the beeswax into the tin molds, let the candles set up and then carefully cut the red crepe frilled paper that circled the base of each candle so that you could hold it up over your head whilst singing carols and not punctuate the song with screams of hot wax agony.

Nothing smells like the holidays more than a beeswax candle. Especially one Ora Mae made. I guess she still makes them now and then.

You know, you say you're a Moravian anywhere outside of Winston-Salem, NC and Bethlehem, PA and people will look at you like you're a bug or some such. Those that have some sort of clue usually want to know why I'm not dressed like one - cause you know, they used to dress funny.

Anyway - I better head on over to the store if I am to do anything useful at all today.

Eat good turkey everyone - or tofurky, or whatever it is that you eat.