Rookie Mama: Put your head on my shoulder season

 By Michelle Cote 
The Rookie Mama

Once upon a time, November signaled pure adrenaline and deadline pandemonium in my life.

I was in my newspaper advertising era pre-kids, back when the lead-up to Black Friday promotions was a totally serious business prior to this National Sales-Flyer-and-Tryptophan-Recovery Day becoming a free-for-all with no real rules in place – Why wait until late November when merchants can push discount coffee makers and giant TVs fresh on the heels of back-to-school shopping-palooza?

But I digress.

Take my CMYK-printed word for it; Black Friday in its heyday of Kohl’s flyer pallets under lock and key in every daily newspaper’s mailroom was once totally serious business for sure.

Today, November is just as frenzied for different reasons – pande-Mom-ium, if you will.

Along with October, it’s a curious peak-shoulder season, a medley of all times of year compounded with alternating hot and blustery days, as blazing foliage drifts about and garden beds attempt to spring to life just for kicks, far past their bedtime.

It’s a final Cliff’s Notes weather summary before we end out on a December note with a Fa-la-la.

My family and I work diligently to better our seasonal shift-navigational skills each year, in an attempt to spend more time intentionally living in the moments as the summer closes up shop, sports run amok, and autumn monster-mashes in and back.

There’s much ado about buttoning up the season before snow flies and we hunker on down.

In October of last year, we ventured to a pumpkin patch on a sprawling, local farm to pick our future jack-o-lanterns.

In theory, the stage was set for a memorable adventure.

The day was bright and intentions were tremendous.

Yet near-meltdowns were had – as it turns out, the kiddos were the ones sprawling – and a Great Pumpkin-sized fortune was spent on what truly had become more of a time-sucking, tiring chore, Charlie Brown.

This year, we turned pumpkin-picking on its head and took a more practical approach.

My husband and I packed up our four boys, drove to much-nearer Walmart, and everyone picked out their prize pumpkin from the vast array in a giant box smack dab in Produce. Pumpkins were $3.97 each, everyone was happy, and we spent the difference from what we’d paid the year prior on apple cider, bacon, and egg nog.

A lot of it.

The elated moods were priceless, no one cried, and – did I mention there was egg nog?

Lessons indeed had been learned, for the win.

And like the frugal sextet we are, we made the most of those gourds by carving up creepy-funny hybrid designs, scraping every last scoop of goopy guts – the technical term, no doubt – into fabulous puree for delicious chocolate chip pumpkin cookies.

We roasted up lightly seasoned seeds for healthy, tasty snacks at home and school – All made possible by $3.97 pumpkins.

Oh my gourd.

Our traditions ebb and flow and evolve each year, but we try our best – albeit imperfectly – to cut unnecessary cost when we can.

And there’s no better time to reflect on this than a little shoulder season we call November, a month best known for a holiday rich with loved ones, hot food, and heapings of gratitude.

Can-shaped cranberry sauce is the icing on the cake.

And no matter the weather, as fall neatly closes to make way for winter’s persistent chill, you can bet on eggnog all month long.

­­– Michelle Cote lives in southern Maine with her husband and four sons, and enjoys camping, distance running, biking, gardening, road trips to new regions, arts and crafts, soccer, and singing to musical showtunes – often several or more at the same time!