I wish I had known what a grand time it was and not taken it for granted.
It was November and the holiday season was heralded in retail outlets across the land. In all the grocery stores, smiling cardboard turkeys sporting Pilgrim hats swung from the ceiling of every aisle. Boxes of Christmas candies and the ingredients for fruitcakes and cookies appeared overnight in beautiful displays. Store employees wore Santa caps and sat at prominently placed tables taking orders for spiral-cut honey-baked hams and other specialty items while chatting with customers about how many people would be around their table that year. [Dorothea Benton Frank in Full of Grace]
