Being thankful

Thanksgiving was a whirlwind around here. We started early by lazing around in our pajamas and watching the Thanksgiving Day parades. My mother always enjoyed parades and I harbor some pretty fond memories of exclaiming over floats ranging from beautiful to down right bizarre. For a while when I was a kid we knew one of the clowns in the Detroit parade and would watch for her when they walked by. We knew the Santa Claus, too, which never struck me as odd—Santa happens to sit next to my parents at the football games every fall, what of it?

We had Thanksgiving brunch with Jon's family this year. That's something we've never done before, but a tradition I might wholeheartedly recommend, since it kept our meal consumption down to just two for the day, albeit it two large ones. We arrived with homemade bagels and pumpkin cupcakes and Calvin went right to work with their juicer. You haven't lived until you've had Calvin's cranberry, orange, banana, something else Thanksgiving brunch surprise, let me tell you.

Brunch, lunch, dinner, it doesn't matter—the warmth of time spent with family, of hugs and of laughter, is what really defines Thanksgiving.

The late afternoon took us to my parents' house, where we put our pumpkin pie and cranberry relish to good service alongside a phenomenal smoked turkey (it's a three day process, I hear), and sundry other delectables. Food, to me, is another part of the definition of this holiday, and being able to contribute adds to the experience.

And what would Thanksgiving be without a little after dinner sewing challenge? We were, every single one of us, charmed into it by the three year old zipping around the table where we sat being too stuffed to move.

It's a grand life filled with love, and for that I am thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving to all

For much of the day our kitchen was warmed by the heat of the oven and the smells of holiday cooking filled our home. The pie is baked, the bagels are made, the cranberry relish and pumpkin cupcakes are done. I love celebrating on the eves of holidays. There's just something about the calm before the storm. Tomorrow we will get up and watch parades before we take off for a full day of running from home to home and devouring as much sweetness as we can, both in love and in food, but tonight we sat back and took it easy. After a full day of baking, and a couple of hours spent on Thanksgiving crafts and book reading, we celebrating Thanksgiving Eve by ordering pizza and eating it on the sitting room floor in front of a roaring fire.

Tomorrow is about a lot more than travel, though. Thanksgiving, after all, is about being thankful. Centuries ago it wouldn't have been known as Thanksgiving, but would have been simply a harvest celebration. Giving thanks for the food that sustains us has long been a tradition in many cultures, but over time quick trips to the grocery store have given us over to forgetfulness; that food has to come from somewhere, and I don't mean produce aisle at your local super store. Don't forget to be thankful for your cook, whoever that might be, and don't forget to be thankful for the farmer(s) who produced the food you will be eating. For our Thanksgiving contributions this year we bought and cooked with almost entirely Michigan products. It was fun to know a little more about the foods we were using, and to be able to say thanks with our purchase power.

We wish you all safe travels, full stomachs, and healthy, happy days with friends and family. Happy Thanksgiving from our bunch of turkeys to yours!

Well, there's always next year

The football year started out with what seemed like promise, but fizzled out with what seemed more like the waning efferevesence of flat ginger ale, and that's no real fizzle at all. To that all I can say is, well, there's always next year.

Home grown

September, 2008 compared to November, 2009

He takes showers instead of baths, he feeds all the pets by himself, including maneuvering the basement stairs alone, and he answered the phone the other day with incredibly adept politeness. And, when he sets the table before dinner, he insists on handling the chore solo from start to finish, including getting the silverware from the drawer. A year ago that wasn't possible without the aid of a stool, and I could have sworn that was true even last month, but now it requires just a little help from those tippy toes. Getting the mail all by himself has been another of his shining moments.

And now you'll expect me to go on about how time flies, about how hard it is to see him growing up, or about how poignant a thing this growth is when it's happening to your own offspring, etc. & etc. Instead, let me just say that showers use less water than baths, that it's a real load off to have another person in the house who can help with chores without our assistance, and that from now on the telemarketers had better watch out.

When pigs fly

Thirty minutes. That's how long we spent wandering up and down just one single aisle at Lowes today. Was that single aisle the row of lumber that had drawn us to the store initially? Or a collection of things we actually need, like, oh, a water softener, or maybe a new bathroom faucet? No, the aisle that held us captive for so disgustingly long a time was the corridor of glittering seasonal animatronics; a hallway confused with motion and sizzling with electricity; an arena of robotic toys and decorations competing to grab the attentions of unsuspecting hardware shoppers with increasingly gaudy splendor. We don't do Christmas before Thanksgiving! I refuse. (Can you hear the futility of my objections being drowned out by the constant noise of train wheels, singing snowmen, dancing trees, and squeaking joints on mobile blow-up frippery? Futile, I tell you.)

The trains are what made us stop in the first place. That and the top shelf of blow-up yard decor, purposefully visible from nearly anywhere in the store.

You can take Christmas home early with miniature after miniature of toy stores, car dealerships, or Elvis.

Nothing says Christmas like Elvis, apparently, be it at the drive-in, or at Graceland. You can now be the proud of owner of both, in miniature.

You ain't nothing but a hound dog with a cheap plastic guitar.

And for those of you who, like me, swore that you'd celebrate Christmas before Thanksgiving on the day that pigs fly, for a cool $58 you can now join the ranks of early celebrators with a clear conscience.

Here's hoping you survive the elongated season. As far as I'm concerned, the pig can have his wings, I'm still keeping Christmas at bay until after we've had our turkey.