Thanksgiving posts have taken over the internet, and everywhere I look I am confronted with pictures of food. 

When I was anorexic, Thanksgiving was my least favorite holiday. My extended family got together, and someone always made pie that not only had half the calories of my daily self-imposed limit, but also came attached with happy childhood memories and the knowledge it was made by someone I loved very much.

Holidays can be hard for any number of reasons, but for anorexics and their people, they contain so many potential landmines. If the anorexic has been hiding out under baggy clothes, her condition might not be noticed as much by those who are with her every day, but it will be glaring to someone who hasn't seen her in six months or a year. When an entire holiday is about eating too much, not eating or eating very little makes everyone else sit up and pay attention. Someone not eating can make someone who has overeating problems feel doubly defensive. Plus, family. Just family. It doesn't take much to set people off who have been forced to leave their own houses and spend an afternoon crowded together being thankful.

Then there's being thankful. It's hard to be thankful when you're depressed or in the grips of anxiety or OCD or an eating disorder. My head was extremely crowded in those years, mostly thinking about food I wouldn't let myself eat. 

I'm thankful every day that those painful Thanksgivings are behind me now. This is the first Thanksgiving I've had something to offer besides a blog post for those who are anorexic or those who are going to find themselves sitting across the table from a very thin person and worrying this holiday season. For less than the price of a turkey, I can offer my novel. 

I haven't done a lot of promotion in the past six months here, but I wanted to share the background of my book again for anyone new. 

“Everyone trusted me back then. Good old, dependable Diana. Which is why most people didn’t notice at first.”

"Your shirt is yellow."

"Your eyes are blue."

"You have to stop running away from your problems." 

"You're too skinny."

Fifteen-year-old Diana Keller accidentally begins teaching The Obvious Game to new kid Jesse on his sixteenth birthday. As she buries her shock about her mother's fresh cancer diagnosis in cookbooks, peach schnapps and Buns of Steel workouts, Diana both seduces athlete Jesse and shoves him away under the guise of her carefully constructed sentences. As their relationship deepens, Diana avoids Jesse's past with her own secrets -- which she'll protect at any cost. Will Diana and Jesse's love survive his wrestling obsession and the Keller family's chaos, or will all their important details stay buried beneath a game? 

Praise for The Obvious Game:

"Lovely, evocative, painful and joyful all  in one ... much like high school." --Jenny Lawson, author of LET'S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED 

“I couldn’t put down THE OBVIOUS GAME. Arens perfectly captures the hunger, pain and uncertainty of adolescence.” -- Ann Napolitano, author of A GOOD HARD LOOK and WITHIN ARM'S REACH

"THE OBVIOUS GAME is a fearless, honest, and intense look into the psychology of anorexia. The characters—especially Diana--are so natural and emotionally authentic that you’ll find yourself yelling at the page even as you’re compelled to turn it." -- Coert Voorhees, author of LUCKY FOOLS and THE BROTHERS TORRES

"Let’s be clear about one thing: there’s nothing obvious about THE OBVIOUS GAME. Arens has written a moving, sometimes heart-breaking story about one girl’s attempt to control the uncontrollable. You can’t help but relate to Diana and her struggles as you delve into this gem of a novel." -- Risa Green, author of THE SECRET SOCIETY OF THE PINK CRYSTAL BALL

"THE OBVIOUS GAME explores the chasms between conformity and independence, faith and fear, discoveries and secrets, first times and last chances, hunger and satisfaction. The tortured teenage experience is captured triumphantly within the pages of this unflinching, yet utterly relatable, novel. -Erica Rivera, author of INSATIABLE: A YOUNG MOTHER’S STRUGGLE WITH ANOREXIA 

Book Information:

Publisher: Inkspell Publishing

Release Date: Feb 7th, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-9856562-7-0 (ebook), 978-0-9856562-8-7 (Paperback)

Paperback Price: $13.99

Kindle: $4.99

• THE OBVIOUS GAME on AMAZON
• THE OBVIOUS GAME on BARNES & NOBLE
• THE OBVIOUS GAME on INDIEBOUND

Thanksgiving is a time when things start coming to a head for Diana, who started out "normal." The novel follows her thoughts and feelings into the abyss ... and back out. If you're a family member or friend who wants to throttle their anorexic loved one, this book can help you understand the psychology of suffering from this condition. If you're full-blown anorexic yourself, I'm so sorry. This book contains the sentences that helped me break out of the mind-space that could have killed me. If you just have a weird relationship with food, you might find yourself examining why you initiated your set of rules that determine when you can eat, why, with whom and how much. And if you just like contemporary young adult novels that ask really hard questions about growing up, you might like it as a read.

The next few weeks are going to be really hard for a lot of people who struggle with their relationship with food. For some, it's never "just a doughnut." If you're anorexic, taking one bite more than you planned can feel like bungee jumping off a bridge. I remember wondering why these people who loved me kept asking me to put myself through that. So be kind if you see someone staring in misery at her plate on Thanksgiving. Eating disorders are nobody's fault, and recovery takes a village. Take care of each other.

My aunts always had real Christmas trees with ornaments that matched perfectly and ribbons tied to the boughs, at least they did in my memory. I remember going over to friends' houses and seeing trees with all white ornaments or themes that changed a bit every year. My parents indulged my desires with regard to the tree on certain things, but we never did have a real tree. I can't remember why. Probably because they're flammable and expensive and kind of a pain in the ass.

My first year in Kansas City, I lived alone, and I bought a houseplant and decorated that. When Beloved and I moved in together, we got a real tree once or twice, but I never did go crazy -- even that one year when we had tons of money, God bless the Internet bubble -- and buy all matching ornaments or a bunch of real ribbons to tie on the branches. We're never in Kansas City for Christmas, and it felt like a ton of effort for no real reason. It's not like anyone came over to our house.

Then the little angel was born, and we went back to decorating This Old House with gusto, hanging lighted wreathes above the gorgeous wood trim on the entry way (there were so many things wrong with that house, but the foyer, living and dining room were amazing) and hiding scented pine cones everywhere. We even had this crazy lighted Season's Greetings sign we hung on the Great Retaining Wall of 2004.

Then we realized little kids and breakable Christmas ornaments don't go together and stopped decorating the lower half of the artificial, pre-lit tree for about four years.

I've always taken after my grandmother in terms of my affection for grandeur. She could afford it, I can't, but I still love it most of the time. Or I thought I did. I asked for -- and received -- crystal drinking glasses for my wedding, but I've used them only a handful of times. I just started using the not-china-just-normal-but-reserved-for-special-occasions stoneware pretty white plates we kept in the cupboards for the past eleven years while we chipped up the normal stuff or used plastic plates from Target every night at dinner. I thought I wanted fancy stuff, but then realized I get scared to use it, afraid I'll break it. But why? I'm 38 years old and my daughter is old enough to run with scissors. If I'm not going to use it now, then when will I? When I'm too arthritic to wrap my paw around a wine glass?

I tell myself the reason I don't go whole-hog on a beautifully decorated tree is because nobody comes to our house at Christmastime. We don't have annual Christmas parties like some people do, and we still go to Iowa every year for Christmas Eve and Christmas day.

I think the truth is that I don't care that my ornaments are terribly pedestrian, and you can totally see the gaps in my low-rent artificial tree. The little angel likes the ornaments, and at this point, I care more about what she thinks than anything else. Christmas is about kids, and we decorate the house for her, mostly.

I wonder what will happen when she leaves the house -- will I eventually tie ribbons around the boughs of a real Christmas tree with matching ornaments while sipping champagne from my Waterford crystal wine glass? Will I ever get as fancy as my twelve-year-old self imagined I would be?

I've been reading some interesting posts over at BlogHer about Santa. One was from a woman who is not going to tell her child that Santa is real, ever:

We’ve definitely put some thought into this decision, and I feel certain it’s the right one for our family. I think we will absolutely tell Noah the story of Santa Claus, but we just won’t tell him Santa brings him presents, comes down the chimney, eats cookies that he leaves for him or that Santa is “watching him.”

I don’t think he’ll be missing out on much because we will begin our own traditions, and he will have happy Christmases built on the values that we’ve chosen for our family.

On the other side is the woman whose kids freaked when they saw Santa in a restaurant:

But instead I saw you, in all your white-bearded, spectacled glory, enjoying a quiet meal with Mrs. Claus. In a Harley T-shirt and jeans. No matter…the kids didn’t need to see your red suit or reindeer companions to know it was you. I’m sure your celebrity status allows you little anonymity at this time of year.

The most interesting thing about these posts is how important whether or not Santa exists and whether or not their kids believe he exists is to people. I had no idea. You should go read the comments -- some people are kind of worked up over whether a complete stranger tells her kid Santa's a myth.

I had to text my parents and sister last night while thinking about this post to figure out if I ever believed in Santa Claus. (It turns out I did, and my sister remembered the exact moment I ruined her childhood by telling her he was a ruse. Sorry, Sis.) The reason I think I wondered is that my parents are Christian and very religious, and what I remember most clearly was going to church on Christmas Eve and the nativity appearing under the huge tree there every week in advent, the advent wreath, the candles. I really, really, don't remember the Santa bits.

My seven-year-old is on the edge of no longer believing in Santa. She said the other day she doesn't want to grow up, either. I think she's clinging to Santa like she clings to her stuffed animals -- growing up is tough stuff, and Santa and young-kid toys are a safety blanket of sorts for her, the easy, no-pressure part of childhood before you have peer pressure or fashion or mean girls.

Most of her friends don't believe in Santa any more and tell her that he's not real. Last year she wrote on her white board "things I believe in" and drew the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Santa. It made me feel wistful to see that, just like it made me wistful to start shopping in the girls section of the store instead of the toddler section, just like it makes me feel wistful to realize she knows all the words to Adele songs and has somewhere learned to dance with actual rhythm.

When she comes to me and asks, I just keep directing it back to her, asking her what she thinks. I'm a fiction writer. I make her bears talk, I make up stories about the cat texting me, and she knows I'm full of it but loves the stories, anyway. When she was little, I told her the cat ate monsters and then made up a whole picture book plot line about it, and she loved that, too. She stopped believing the cat really ate monsters but still loved the idea. But that, too, is me --  making up stories is very natural and fun for me, so I doubt she'll freak when she makes the transition from believing Santa is real to loving the idea. I doubt she'll hate me for being a liar, because "lie" and "fiction" -- oh, it's such a fine line, isn't it? Her childhood has been filled with interesting fictions (she still believes there is a Mommy Handbook -- from which I regularly quote passages -- and that I have to report to the Mommy Board if I fail to discipline her properly). 

Oh, we do emphasize our celebration of Christmas from a religious perspective, as well. Though we don't have a regular church, we still celebrate the story of Christmas. She knows for Christians Christmas is the second most important religious holiday --  and she also knows a long time ago our culture started separating out the religious part from the Santa part so even people who aren't Christians celebrate Christmas, just in a different way. The mash-up of cultural and Christian holidays is very real -- Easter, same thing. Our culture tends to do that with Christian holidays way more than any other religious holidays, so it's something we confront over and over. The way we've dealt with it is to completely separate them -- there's the serious religious holiday and then the crazy American holiday, and they really have nothing to do with one another but, you know, fun! Who doesn't like painting eggs and decorating trees?

Kids are going to have to confront other kids with different belief systems their whole lives, whether it's Santa or a different religion or a different culture. Nobody parents the same way, and part of parenting is helping your child negotiate a world filled with different belief systems without fighting with everyone. Which is why I don't get why some commenters are so upset. 

I love the philosophy of the Jewish woman whose family used to celebrate Christmas and now has a Christian boyfriend: 

As years went on, our ginormous Christmas tree became a Chanukah bush. I never really understood that. The bush part I mean. Like a burning bush? My dad was slowly finding his Jewish roots, and we were slowly losing our Christian Christmas. If you ask my mom why we celebrated Christmas, she'll say that it was never a religious celebration but rather an opportunity to decorate. And wrap. The woman is an expert gift wrapper.

Today's post is in response to Addy's writing prompt, thank you, Addy! 

Changing seasons means the holidays are coming. What are your plans, hopes, fears and dislikes for that time of the year? Do you make resolutions or just watch everyone else break theirs? Will you have a neighborhood celebration this year? Too many questions?

I like parties. Thus, I like the holidays, even though I always shrug them off immediately after like a wet coat. (I have been known to take down my Christmas tree first thing in the morning on 12/26 if I am close enough to it.)

The thing about holidays: they make you realize another year has gone by. And yay! Right? I mean, you're still alive! Consider the alternative! But at the same time I get bittersweet and nostalgic, which I hate. Hate? Here's why: If you focus to much on how great things were years and years ago, you miss out on how great they are now. I find myself getting really nostalgic for when I was a kid instead of focusing on making my daughter's holidays ones that she'll be nostalgic for later. I have to remind myself this is her childhood. These are her memories. Get out of your head, Rita.

The holidays, now? Are not about me. I don't sacrifice my whole life for my child, but holidays? Yeah. Sort of do. I'm okay with it, because from the minute that little redhead appeared in my life, life has been different. I can try to tell myself it's not, but yeah, totally is. Before I had a kid, did I consider 8 pm to be crazy ass late to be out, driving, on a road?

There's not as much downtime. Not as much money. Not as much freedom. Initially I felt sort of sorry for myself because of that, then a few years rocketed past and I realized how much life there will be on the other end of this childrearing business when she's off in her own apartment calling and asking how to boil water and I'm finishing work and looking into a full evening of Whatever the Hell I Want. (That does seem unfathomable now, as I type it.)

So I will subject myself to lines and crowds and uncomfortable sweaters and too many cookies and TV specials I've seen 1763 times in order to give her something to be nostalgic about.

Okay, here's the other reason I love my new job: The Holiday Hot Mess Photo Contest. It was birthed from a discussion of holiday visitors and OH THE COATS AND THE BOOTS AND THE PRESENTS AND THE TISSUE PAPER.

AND THE PACKING PEANUTS.

AND THE CARDBOARD.

AND THOSE LITTLE TWIST TIES.

I hate the little twist ties with the force of a thousand suns.

The only good part about all this crap is that it's funny! Who doesn't love a photo like this?

 

Just throw your coat anywhere.

Seriously, if you don't think that's funny, then your heart is too sizes too small.