Let's take a moment to consider the month of November.

I love November and I don't think it gets enough credit. It seems like it gets squeezed in between the end of summer and Christmas, and many times we just breeze on through it without the appreciation and respect it deserves.

For openers, it hosts Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a most innocent and genuine holiday. It conjures up thoughts and feelings of warmth, family, hearth and home. The harvest is in, the barn is full and the feeling of satisfaction that you've put in a good year's work is in the air. The only gifts that are required on this holiday are the gifts of smiles, warmth and time together.

November gives us a chance to slow down and catch up with ourselves. The pressure is off -- from the summer, with all its many options (sometimes, too many) and October when I feel the pressure to see every beautiful leaf in the framework of 10 days or two weeks. Does anyone else feel like summer gets a little stale after July?

And the air ! It's cool and crisp and clean and the best it is all year. Thanks, November, for giving us reason to invent flannel. It doesn't get much better than putting on a plaid flannel shirt and going for a walk down a leaf-covered path when the late afternoon sun casts those beautiful long sideways shadows. The added bonus is that you know there's the guarantee of a cup of cocoa or a glass of wine in front of a fire just to top off your day.

In terms of beauty, the only thing that can compete with that image is a back yard that's been raked for the last time with big leaf piles scattered around it, highlighted by that same, November-only, angle of sunlight. When I've done that, I sit looking out the kitchen window and have a wonderful feeling I've given the yard a good final back-scratching. It's the closest thing I'll get to being a farmer at harvest.

I also know I've set the scene for two of my most favorite things in life -- playing in the leaves and burning the leaves.

Playing in the leaves is the best. You get some kids (doesn't matter how old), make a big pile and then go for it! Jump in, throw all the leaves you can hold up in the air, roll around, then grab your rake and do it all again and again and again till the leaves surround your hair, eyes and mouth and you feel like you are the leaf pile. You want to delight yourself and your kids or grandkids for an hour? Don't buy them a $50 gift card or spend more time in front of a computer (our newest scourge). Play in the leaves with them.

Burning leaves is against the law, but we've lost something with that law. I know the intent is good, but I sure do miss the smell of burning leaves.

I loved to burn them just around dusk. It was like a magnet for kids. It felt great to see the kids wander up the street: not too much talking, just hanging out watching the leaves burn. I used to tell my kids that it wasn't smoke curling up from the burning leaves, it was the Indians dancing. They didn't buy much of that, but when I was a kid I believed it, so I had to give it a try.

OK, so much for the nostalgia overdose. But I have one last November memory:

Joe Zak used to have a small store down on Painters Run Road in the South Hills, and for about five years my Pirates buddy Dave Giusti and I used to help Joe label, wrap and store the turkeys ordered for Thanksgiving. Talk about simpler (and in my mind, better) times! We would go on the two Sundays prior to Thanksgiving. Joe would have a big pot of homemade soup and homemade wine and we had the time of our lives wrapping turkeys and telling jokes all day long.

Joe loved it. Putting long white aprons on these old ballplayers and turning us into his helpers was an annual ritual that became just one more reason to love November.

I guess there are things to enjoy and appreciate every month, but maybe November gives me more of the things I love. And just as important, the time to soak them up.

I think Perry Como had it right -- "there's no place like home for the holidays." I just wonder if he had the right holiday.

Let me be the first to say it: Happy Thanksgiving!

First Published: November 5, 2008, 10:45 a.m.