One of my favorite November quotes is by children’s author Cynthia Rylant.
She writes in her picture book In November:
“In November, the smell of food is different. It is an orange smell. A squash and pumpkin smell. It tastes like cinnamon and can fill up a house in the morning, can pull everyone from bed in a fog. Food is better in November than any other time of the year.”
I’m hard-pressed to find a better quote to describe the eleventh month of the year.
If you echo this, I hope this month’s playlist feels extra special to you.
The November Mood:
Thanksgivings in my childhood were filled with lots of cousins, aunts, uncles, and mashed potatoes. And pie.
After filling our bellies and stretching our stretchy pants (and taking a nap or two!), there were a few years when my dad would start the ol’ orange stick shift tractor and pull up to the side of the house.
Bundled up in coats, hats pulled down to our eyebrows, and a blanket or two carried in our arms, we would hop onto the trailer packed with pales for a good old-fashioned hayride.
We’d pass by fields which a few short months ago were towering with corn stalks—now barren. The sun would be a golden coin lowering into the horizon telling us when it was time to turn around for home again.
Once we got stuck and had to walk back to the house. Laughing and also feeling a little bit ready for some more pie.
Looking back, it was very much a wholesome memory.
November brings with it such a warmth, a feeling of that, while the days get shorter and shorter, there is a homeliness from settling into the new routine of the darker months.
All this to say, the playlist for November was created to feel warm, appreciative, and—above all else—like a feeling of tucking in for the season to come.
