This Thanksgiving, treat yourself to the gift of time

THE only thing worse than Valentine's Day without love is Thanksgiving without time.

Thanksgiving wasn't invented by busy people. It was invented by Pilgrims, who needed a long diversion from clearing the woods and listening to their stomachs growl. They liked the idea of a meal that took all week to prepare.

Nearly 400 years later, time — not food — remains the essential ingredient of Thanksgiving. If you've got time to relax, you're golden. If you don't, you'll be sadder than a table for one on Feb. 14.

Thanksgiving air travel is expected to drop 10 percent this year because of the economy. Auto travel will be down too, despite the recent decline in gas prices. People will be sticking closer to home, cooking less-elaborate meals to save money. They also may be less likely to race out the door Friday morning to the shopping mall.

Such trends are bad for retailers and grocers, but they're great for collective sanity. Less time rushing around, maxing out your holiday like a crazy person, means more hours to rest.

More time for men to put their feet up and watch football — or whatever men do to relax.

More time for women to catch their breath, rather than have a rolling nervous breakdown over side dishes and family obligations.

Without exception, the hardest Thanksgivings involve insufficient time. Those are the years you speed to dinner after pulling a shift at work, or split the day between two families, or exhaust yourself (and your sweetie) trying to masquerade as a storybook grandmother. You divide yourself like a pie to make everybody happy and end up with indigestion instead.

The best Thanksgivings, by contrast, involve hours of unstructured time. You play football with the cousins. You shoot the breeze with your siblings. Or maybe you sleep in and make a dish for a potluck with friends. Whatever the case, you find time to connect with people, not just check them off your list.

So this year, my family will attempt the elusive no-stress Thanksgiving. No driving past state lines, and no stripping for airport security. Just a small gathering at my brother's house nearby, where we'll eat dinner and drink wine while the kids get gravy in their hair.

The pie will have store-bought crust and no one will care. As Garrison Keillor says, the best pumpkin pie you've ever eaten is not much different from the worst. We won't see everyone we'd love to see, but the phone will get us through.

Later in the weekend, maybe we'll rake some leaves and get a Christmas tree. It will be a deeply unimpressive showing, in terms of dollars spent, miles traveled and total relatives visited. Something tells me we'll still manage to have a good time.