Here we are again. Three weeks past Thanksgiving, smack dab in the middle of the holiday season, and a pandemic that’s like my style in the club; it just won’t quit. What a time to be alive! Have I said that before? Probably. Compared to last year, where we were separate and isolated, it might not be that bad. You didn’t have to worry about leaving us out of a Thanksgiving Zoom Call this year. Things are looking up. Nothing for me to hold a grudge about. Good. And no, I’m not still holding a grudge about that Thanksgiving zoom call. That would be insane.

I can’t tell if a year is long or short. A lot can happen and even more can change. One year, thanksgiving is working from home, where you watch a parade of float prerecorded a week earlier on 34th street; the next is a full blown gathering full of as many vaccines as the pharmacy would give us. It’s actually the appetizer and main course. You haven’t lived til you’ve had turkey, basted in vaccines. No I mean you really haven’t lived. This isn’t sounding right. I mean you have not lived. Ugh.

I have to agree with SNL; Staten Island is full of turkeys. And no, I’m not talking about your cousin Sal. I mean actual wild turkeys. Full bottles of Wild Turkey being drank by your cousin Sal and actual wild turkeys. I hit one or two with my golf ball two months ago. It’s a gobble ball now. A gobball. Isn’t word play fun on Wild Turkey Wednesday?

Ah, WTW, my old fiend, er, I mean friend. How are all my high school fiends, er, wait, friends doing? Any new developments? Marriages and kids, huh? Well, that’s thirty for ya! Time of their lives and their little new lives, I reckon. I keep a breast of the changes via the Meta Company’s subsidiaries of Facebook and Instagram, don’t you worry your pretty little bar tab about that. So much can change after all, I guess, in a whole year.

Keep your old friends close and your new friends closer. That’s what I’ve done. I’ve made a slew of new friends, mostly online. It’s so weird to pull out a device and wave “Here are my friends!” But I’ll show you a discord full or weirdos and misfits and really nice people. Discord is kind of the wrong word for a place to meet people and agree on something, as it literally translates to a disagreement. Seems perfect for Thanksgiving, though.

And we’re back, once again, at Thanksgiving. A fuller circle has never been drawn, and I’ve seen three seasons of the reality show “The Circle.” Have you? It’s wild stuff. Wait! All this circle talk has me spinning more than my dreidel! Did you know it was also Hanukkah. Seems to be coming earlier and earlier every year and getting shorter and shorter. It’s the Benjamin Button of holidays. A nice Jewish boy’s name if I ever heard one.

And what would you like for Hanukkah? asks no one because gifts aren’t the point. The point is to once again commemorate the persecution of Jews and the tenacity that they have been forced to adopt these 5760 something odd years. Not to quote the Tin Man, but “gimme dat oil, yo!” And where would we be without mentioning the food? Those donuts, fried potatoes, sour cream, or as I call it, breakfast. Life’s got a funny way of always serving you breakfast!

Anyway, Hanukkah came and went like some bad gas this year, and by that, I mean I ran out of candles to light. You try finding Hanukkah supplies in Bay Ridge. I had to borrow hair gel and fresh pasta to make my menorah. I cobbled together what I could. Thanks for the fettuccine, Alfredo! I feel connected to my Jewish-Italian roots.

All in all, two holidays down before we even knew it and now that’s what I call Christmas knocking at the door. Oh, no, hang on, just a stupid Amazon package. Ugh, toss it on the pile. I forget what it even is that I ordered. Isn’t that fun! See you closer to Christmas, which, coincidentally, is the new Christmas movie I’m writing: Closer to Christmas, the story of a busy stock company exec who’s being ordered to treat his employees with any type of kindness, so he decides to fly them all to the North Pole this year and well, you get the picture.

Happy Holidays (Non-Denominational and Otherwise) to you and yours.