Day 8: Some Call It Socktober

Yesterday was the first day that I had worn socks in quite a while. It wasn't that I felt cold enough to need them, so much as where I had planned to go required socks. As it turned out, my plans changed and my sock wearing was for naught, but it, along with a timely holiday ad did get me thinking.

Normally in October we begin to get cooler weather. The blistering heat of the summer gives way to comfy warmth that slowly morphs into frosty mornings. Those chilly a.m. hours equal scrapping windshields, warming your hands on hot beverages and sock wearing. Since it is October, this means holiday socks, and I love holiday socks.

In general I feel that socks are boring and restrictive. Your choices are either white or black if you want to stay fashion forward, or just dress sensibly. Before I knew the joy of holiday socks, I tried to break with this black or white trend by introducing argyle into my wardrobe, but really, you can only take argyle so far. As soon as I was old enough to veto the frilly sock purchases and the monochromatic wonders that my mother chose, I started requesting crazy socks. It was my way of expressing my individuality. At my school we didn't have uniforms, it was worse. Girls had to wear dresses. If I couldn't wear my beloved pants, than at least I could wear crazy socks in protest.

October was what started it all. It is the first month after the long drought of summer when holiday socks start to emerge. Ok it isn't, there are Fourth of July socks, but they are pretty boring and the selection isn't so great. It is always a variation of red, white and blue and fireworks, which is nice, but limiting. Now October, October has tons of choices.

You can get crazy slipper socks, crazy knee highs, crazy footletts, or just plain crazy socks. They come in all kinds of colors and themes. There are scary socks that look like monsters are eating your feet. Sweet socks with black cats or candy. Vampire socks, monster socks, ghost socks, candy corn socks, bat socks, stripped socks, spider socks, bloody socks, socks with menacing eyes, socks with haunted houses, socks with words, etc… It’s great. And when I found the internet, I found all sorts of places to find good holiday socks.

I don't remember when I decided this, but one October I made the goal of one day purchasing enough October socks to have a different pair for each day of this wonderful month. Which given the variety doesn't seem like it would be so hard, BUT, I am quite picky about the socks I choose. They have to speak to me. Not literally. Good heavens, I am not that far gone, but they have to somehow be unique. To date I have 37 pair of October holiday socks and I am always on the lookout for more. In fact, I have my eye on a pair at the local grocery store.

Wearing crazy holiday socks under my dignified outfits makes me feel a bit rebellious and like I am getting away with something. Plus it is just plain fun. People look at outfits, belts, scarves, pants, shoes, earrings, etc.... b ut unless you are one of those crazy people who wear socks with sandals, no one ever looks at  your socks. Most of the time they are hidden by pants or close toed shoes. So when I have to dress up for a formal occasion, on go the crazy holiday socks. An important meeting I have to speak at...you guessed it, I most likely am rocking some weird footwear.

Wearing crazy socks gives me an inside joke to chuckle over all day long. At some point during a serious conversation, my mind will wander a bit and I will be thinking, hee hee hee, sir or madam, right now you are talking about X, and I am wearing socks with dancing candy corn on them. Hee hee hee. and then I go back to paying attention…..for the most part.

I think my favorite holiday socks are tied for a pair that I was gifted one October and a pair that I bought at Jo-Ann’s. The gift given socks are a trio of mismatched tall socks. You have a pair and a spare and they don’t resemble each other in any way shape or form, so you can mix and match them to your hearts content. Just my style. After all, buying a pair of socks is so passé. The other pair is full of eyes and if you leave them out in the light, in the dark they glow. So you have a leg full of glowing eyes staring at you and it can be quite disconcerting.  I love to wear them with short pants in movie theaters. I know, I know, I have a weird sense of humor. OOOh and then there are my purple bride of Frankenstein socks. I love those because you hardly ever see the bride, and they are a really fabulous shade of purple. Then there are my haunted house socks…….. Ok, I’ll stop.

Yup, I love my holiday socks. They add spice to my life, a spring to my step and a giggle to my lips. I highly suggest that you go out and get a pair if you don't have some already, and if you don’t I am happy to host an intervention. I will bring my holiday sock box with me.

Day 3: Reminders & Beginnings

Normally, I save this thought for later in the month, but it just kept nagging at me and I had to get it written so I could get some peace. One of my very favorite things about October is the decorations. I love decorations in general, but from April through September, there isn't really much to do holiday wise. Sure, the fourth of July is in there, but there is only so much one can do with red, white and blue. After an almost six month dry spell, this gal really needs to get her decoration on, and October is there to save the day.
I love everything about October décor. There are so many options. Do you go scary? And if so, is it funny scary, ironic scary, scary scary, gruesome scary or a hodgepodge? If scary isn't your thing, maybe pumpkin everything is. Or perhaps scarecrows. Maybe you are a leaf lover or a fan of the jewel tones. It doesn't matter. October has it all.

I get such a rush taking down the decoration boxes. Opening them up and seeing what is inside is like Christmas morning. Sure, I already know what is going to be in the box, but it is like getting reacquainted with an old friend. Do I put it somewhere new, or do I do the same thing as last year and the year before? It is great coming up with new ideas, or adding a bit of bling to an old favorite.
This year however, there was a touch of melancholy to my decorating fervor. Last October thirtieth my house caught on fire. I had gone all out with the décor, so much so that it bordered a bit on tacky. I just wanted everything on display since I couldn't pick a favorite. I can remember standing in the rubble of the house a few days after the fact. The house was eerily quiet and everything was soot blackened. The plastic pumpkins over the valances had melted and run down the drapes. The haunted village looked like it had been ravaged by monsters. The fake flowers had melted and drooped in their vases and the banners hung in rags from their hooks. It was all so sad. But at the same time, kinda theme. The interior looked like the perfect setting for a haunted house.
It didn't really hit me until a few weeks ago, and then especially Tuesday, the October décor was not going to be the same. Ninety-five percent of my décor was lost in the fire. Things that had major memories attached to them. Now some might think it silly to cry over holiday decorations, but they meant something to me. The five light up pumpkins that always sat on the window ledge, were purchased at Payless on a whim, because I had learned a poem about five pumpkins that day in school and mom thought it would be cute to buy them. There was the haunted house that my grandmother made me that had color changing lights on the inside and made a funny clicking sound at each interval. There was the skeleton snow globe that I bought with money from my first job. I had broken it years before while hastily putting it away, but repurposed the remainder so that I didn't have to part with it. Every decoration had a story and it felt like a part of me was missing this year as I put up the new baubles.
But then I realized, there was a silver lining. Not all of the decorations were destroyed. Some really meaningful things had survived. Like the paper scarecrow who has faded and has a myriad of tape removal marks on one side. Or the leaf garland that is starting to look a bit sparse because each year it loses a little more of its foliage. And already, the new decorations have a history built in. As I go through the years into the future, I will remember that this pumpkin was purchased the year of the fire. Or that new decoration was bought on a whim the day before and wasn't put out yet so it was spared. Already new memories are being made. And, with the new décor, there is a new house. Even if the old décor was around, there are not the same places to put it in. So creativity is needed and encouraged.
I haven't really had to think about the placement of things for a few years now, so it was sorta fun to reimagine what October would look like this year. True, it is a bit sparse and a tad eccentric, but it is a start. It will be fun to build my collection back up and make new memories. And, with the documentation of the October Thoughts, I can revive the past and see those decorations again in my minds eye. A real October miracle.
So, what is your favorite fall/autumn/October/Halloween/harvest decoration? And does it have a story?

Tradition & Memories: OT Day 22

It is rather peaceful right now. The neighbors have turned off their spooky lights and I am free to enjoy the velvety dark without my retinas burning or fear of imaginary vehicular retribution. I am snuggled up on the couch watching the Halloween village lights flicker and listening to the cat snore. Even though my online fog dance didn't seem to work, it still turned out to be a rather nice day. I broke down and bought another pumpkin, which I fully intend to carve some time before October 31st. I watched one of my October movies, drank a pumpkin latte and bought a stuffed bat/pumpkin hybrid toy at the grocery store. Yup, it was definitely a good October day.

But it got me thinking. What have been some of my other really wonderful October days? Which lead me to thoughts of tradition. Traditions that I have started and maintained like the October Thoughts, traditions that I hope to begin, or traditions that I have begun but not followed through on for one reason or another. One of my traditions that fell through the cracks was also one of my very best October memories. I was reminded of it today by one of my younger friends. About four years ago, I had the opportunity, nay privilege of being a part of a cider making party. A local grower invites family, friends and various other people to come to his house and turn apples into liquid deliciousness. Depending on the amount of helpers who show up, it takes about four to four and a half hours of hard and continuous labor which at the end of, you are rewarded with dinner and your own cider. It really is magical.

I was asked by a member of the family and didn't know what to expect. I am a city girl. I know how to juice an orange and stick things in the blender. Anything beyond that and I go to the store where they provide it for me in a nice plastic container. (I really would suck at being a pioneer, I’m not kidding). So being a city gal, my first thought was "hmm, what does one wear to a cider making party?" (I settled on stylish yet functional, just in case you were wondering). I had never been to the location before so I made sure to scout it (bordering on stalking) well in advance. I wrote down the event on my calendar and counted the days.

When the big day finally arrived I bounced out of bed eager to go. I showed up at the appointed time only to find that they had started without me. (the nerve ;) Of course my shy mode kicked in. There were dozens of people already happily engaged in the process of cider making. Where to go? What to do? I needn't have worried, there was plenty of work to go around. The whole process was set up like an assembly line. There were people who shoveled the apples off of trucks and into crates. People who cleaned and cut the apples. People who carried crates from group to group. People who used the press. People who bottled, and a few other stations that I can't remember. I was greeted with enthusiasm and set to work along side a few others washing the apples, cutting out the bad spots and dumping them into waiting containers.

Now let me say right from the start that I had HUGE amounts of fun and it is one of my favorite memories. But man, sometimes it was downright miserable. The day was not the warmest and occasionally the sun went behind a cloud or a chilly wind struck up. This would not have been so bad had I not been dealing with apples and water. By the end of the day I was soaking wet and couldn't feel my fingers. But it was great! The fellows from the trucks would come by and dump crates of apples into these soaking tubs next to the table we were at. We let the apples bob and then we had to transfer them from the bleach water they were in, to the rinse water. Then we had to cut them and toss them into a waiting bucket to be taken to the press. It sounds simple enough, but the combination of bleach, cold water and even colder temperatures made ones hands not exactly nimble.

I think I had a watery apple bin overturn on my first fifteen minutes in. It was a good thing I was wearing layers, but I got soaked and there went layer one. I also made a newbie mistake and grabbed one of the apple bins myself to tip it over so the fellows on the truck and dump duty wouldn't have to. I found out pretty quickly why they did the dumping and not us. The edges of the bins are sharp and I sliced my palms on them. So, for those of you keeping score, it was city girl zero, apples two. It was barely a half hour in and I was already covered in water and had to go see someone about Band-Aids. I felt like a doofus.

After getting all the rookie mistakes out of the way nice and quick, things settled down to a routine. I began to chat with my fellow apple cutters and some of those around me. Each of the jobs was hard in its own way, so from time to time, new people or people from other stations would wander in and I would get a break to grab a snack, pet the dog, get warm, see what others were doing or just relax. It wasn't forced labor. You could come and go as you pleased. Some people just came to sit on the steps and watch the work being done. Nothing was really planned out or assigned, and somehow all the stations got filled and things moved like clockwork.

Other than watching the process of cider making and actually doing it myself, my favorite part was laying on the giant trampoline and staring up at the colorful leaves on the trees. The trampoline also functioned as the part time babysitter so sometimes I had to share my leaf watching with the kids, but I didn't mind. They either sat still and watched leaves with me, tried to bounce me off, or begged me to bounce them off. A few decided to be my personal snack bearers and I didn’t dissuade them. On other breaks I wandered to other stations and tried my hand at them. The press in particular was better than any gym work out.

Way sooner than I expected the last bunch of apples were unloaded from the truck. Slowly the process wound down and as each station ran out of apples to process people just sat down on any available space to watch the final product work its way toward being poured into jugs. When the last jug was filled there was a cheer from those assembled and we were then invited into the house for dinner. Food never tastes so good as when you have worked up an appetite. Everything was delicious and warm. I spent equal amounts of time either holding the bowls to get warm or eating the substances inside them. People talked, napped, laughed, mingled and generally enjoyed themselves. Everyone smelled like apples and had a smile on their face. When chairs became scarce, people sat on the floor or any other surface they could find. There was a camaraderie amongst all those people that you don't see very often now a days. We had all participated in a common goal and been amply rewarded for the fruits of our labor s(pun intended).

Slowly the talk wound down. Parents would pick up sleeping children and people would get up in small groups to head home. The jugs of cider got fewer and fewer and the driveway emptied of cars. I thanked my host and hostess for a wonderful time and was invited to come back again the next year. I left with a grin on my face, jugs of cider in my hands and the smell of apples that wouldn't dissipate for a few days, even after a good scrubbing.

I still can't believe that I actually had that experience. Sometimes it feels like a vivid dream. I fully intended to make it an October tradition. After all, what could be better than gathering with a group of folks to make cider on a lovely fall day? But for one reason or another, that has been my only cider making experience to date and that makes me a bit sad. This year I hear that there was live entertainment from a couple of participants who afterwards got out their guitars and serenaded the crowd. Cider and a concert, man jealousy rears its ugly head. Even so, I would not trade having gone the first time for not having gone at all. I know the fun they are having and the memories it will make. I cherish my memories of it and tradition or not at least other people get to experience the wonder of a homemade product and camaraderie with fellow workers.

It makes me sad that things like this don't happen more often. People get so wrapped up in their technological lives that they forget to take their families or friends to things like this. I certainly never knew about such things when I lived in the city. So this is my challenge to you. Make a memory. Go out and find something new and different to do this October with the time you have left. Go find an orchard or a farmers market. Maybe take a hike through an October colored forest or visit a pumpkin patch. Have friends over to bake something or sit around the fire. Create your own tradition and make a memory. You won't be sorry you tried, I promise. After all, water dries, cuts heal and homemade cider tastes better than anything in the world