It’s the most wonderful time of the year, or is it? I don’t want to be a Grinch during the holiday season. The lights, festivities, parties, goodwill, and fellowship are all wonderful. Leftovers are the spoilers. Last week I wrote about my nephew’s surprise 16th birthday party. I mentioned my sister had hot dogs, potato salad, and beans out the wazoo! Now we have Chanukah, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Year’s all coming up. How many ways can one fix turkey, ham, and all manner of leftovers? Maybe Camille can help with all her famous recipes.

When I left Robyn’s house, there it was! She loaded me down with bags of hot dogs, beans, dip, and chips! Later, I thought I saw a giant hot dog running down the street, being chased by a giant jar of mustard. This would make a great ‘’B’’ horror movie. The movie will scare your appetite away. “See giant hot dogs devour humans!” Also people drowning in mustard and attacked by balloons. As I fell asleep in the living room chair, I woke up to party decorations staring at me. I thought someone was standing by my chair. It was only balloons, I thought, until they began to attack! Balloons, balloons, everywhere, coming at me. Help!

As Joan Rivers would say, “Can we talk?”

With Thanksgiving approaching, we should be thankful for what we have in these United States. Some countries could never imagine being able to joke about so much food! Friends, family, and the fellowship they bring are things to be thankful about. This brings me to a little thing called Thanksgiving traditions.

Things can get somewhat sticky trying to keep everyone happy with holiday events. Everyone seems to have their own plans — whose house do we go to? Your parents or my parents? Of course those who have been reading my columns know I don’t have in-laws. At least, that’s one less thing I have to worry about and am thankful for, because I’m an old bachelor fossil!

Over the years we always had Thanksgiving at my dad’s house. This pleased everyone, because Dad liked to cook, and the rest of us knew Thanksgiving was settled.

Unfortunately, my sister Rozanne’s in-laws recently have passed on. Her father-in-law used to take game films for the Dallas Cowboys. She was fortunate to have two Thanksgivings. Their tradition was to go to her in-laws early for lunch and then they would all load up and head to Texas Stadium for the annual Thanksgiving Day Cowboy game. Most of the time people had plans with their family and that was when I got to go. However, sometimes they would ask different people to be their guests. Those years I was a little less thankful but I would still enjoy watching the game with my dad and smelling his cooking.

You may remember me writing about Dad’s thing, to be on time. Sometimes my sister, her husband, and her in-laws would arrive as the rest of us were almost finished eating. There was always plenty of food, and they knew to help themselves. In earlier years, this caused a strain on family harmony. This was all ironed out over the years as my mom mellowed and would agree: “They’ll get here when they get here; let’s eat.”

When my dad, brother, and the rest of us guys finished eating, it was “Katy bar the door!” You see Mom had another tradition. Nobody watched the game, until we were all through eating! Once we were finished eating, it was a race to the den. In the old Jewish musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” it was said that without tradition, one was as stable as a “fiddler on the roof.” If that’s true our family should be plenty stable!

My sister Robyn has a little something extra to be thankful for this year. A neighborhood stray kitten was first adopted by her mother-in-law. It seems she changed her mind, and gave Goldie to Joey as another birthday present. She now has four kids — three cats and a teenage human. She said she uses the term human loosely!

In any case, here is hoping you all find your own tradition to follow this year and make it a wonderful Thanksgiving.