Despite the heavy doses of complaint, I admit my own anticipation. How we will form a ravenous assembly line at the trough of stuffed platters, like the barely patient wolves we are. How the day will swell, then glaze over as we help ourselves to another slice of pie. How this pause in our dizzying industry will settle us briefly, narrow and coalesce our attentions to our fellow diners. And then, in the stupor of the well-fed, we will soften even further, rendered tender as the meat we'd extolled. What I'm thinking about isn't the meal, exactly, thought it's the feast that delivers us here, pliant and full of swoony hope, arms drooping from such plenitude we forget and forgive in equal measure, letting our love swing so wide that even when the cold slides in, we say, Come. Eat. Eat.