Is there a more congenial day in the whole year than the Friday after Thanksgiving, when it becomes proper to begin celebrating Christmas?
There should still be lots of turkey left for sandwiches and soup, it is permitted to play Christmas music incessantly, and the season of egg nog begins.
A jigger of good Brandy in a glass of store-bought nog will do the trick -- and does for me every night of the Christmas holidays. Sipped on a cold night by the fire, egg nog revives the calm and coziness of childhood Christmases as the gentle suspense of the season built to the dramatic revelations of Christmas morning.
Later in life one comes to appreciate that Christmas is a celebration of childhood on every level, as much of the world pauses to honor the birth of a child, a miracle revealed if only momentarily as a mystical event, beyond comprehension . . . the very definition of joy.
Cheers!