Aileen Jeffries

Yesterday, my mom and I engaged in one of my favorite holiday activities: The Making of the Wreaths. The project began as all great Thanksgiving traditions do, with theft. We drove out to Washington County and gathered up the materials for our wreaths from roadside ditches.

We assembled our wreaths on my kitchen floor, to the delight of Kea, who is learning to crawl and appreciated the opportunity to sneak as many thorn-bearing plants into her mouth as possible. Ever the exemplary mother, I kept her out of the thistles and occupied with salal, a native plant with sturdy leaves and edible-if-you’re-starving berries.

Wreath making fits neatly into my Matriarch Ascendancy Plan (MAP) and combines so many of my favorite things about the holidays: time with family, creativity and pillaging nature. It also avoids the twin seasonal pitfalls of rampant consumerism and religion.

Not to diminish Obama’s extraordinary political abilities, but there were so many other factors that got him elected last night. For every thing that the Obama campaign did right, the McCain campaign faltered – from mismanaging the campaign’s budget in the primary, to giving up his “maverick” nature to pander to the base, to his confounding choice of a running mate, to claiming that the fundamentals of our economy are strong when everyone was worried about losing their house or job. McCain had an obstacle to overcome (his party and ties with the highly unpopular current president) and he never offered anything to counterbalance this huge negative.

Honestly, I’m still in shock (proud, elated, thrilled, but shocked) that our country elected an African-American president. Maybe racism is a luxury – in better times, narrow-minded people could vote based on something as petty as skin color, but when the situation really gets bad, people pull the lever for the candidate they think will help them the most. If you’re stranded on a desert island, you’re not going to care about the race of the pilot who comes to save you.

On the other hand, I don’t really care how it happened, I’m just happy it did. What a profound impact the outcome of this election will have on our country and the entire world. Anna and her family stayed up all night in Athens celebrating. Shots of the crowd in Chicago brought tears to my eyes, but so did the scenes of celebration in Kenya. President Obama is affirmation of a message that hasn’t rung true for years – that in America, anything is possible and anyone can achieve their goals.