I hope everyone had as lovely a Thursday as you could possibly have. If you celebrated American Thanksgiving, belated Happy Thanksgiving to you. (Cat picture header just because cat tax, plus LOOKIT DAT FACE)

Here at Herkes House, we enjoyed the usual quiet day of cooking & eating an abundance of foods while also enjoying an abundance of fluffy television programming. Once upon a time Thanksgiving was the last Great Pause before the  6-week work frenzy of my retail season (immediately followed by Spouseman's year-end accounting marathon) and now? Now it's just a Thursday after a bunch of sales on foods we like.

Reason enough for a feast!

I like the traditional Thanksgiving foods, so I always make stuffing & mashed potatoes, decant cranberry sauce from a can (because I am one of Those People) and roast some kind of turkey product, although only rarely a full turkey.  All that's along with whatever other trimmings I feel like making.  Which this year meant cranberry orange scones.

We bought pumpkin pie last week, and I'm glad, because that meant I got to enjoy it before my nose clogged solid from the COVID. Dessert last night: frosted gingerbread cookies from our local grocery/bakery. Spicy enough for me to taste!

Current silly TV viewing is Sliders (which is, in the words of one of the stars, "incomprehensible gibberish" but also great fun.  It's the latest on my current quest to watch/rewatch classic TV  series from the 90's & 00's. Should hold me through next week or even longer,

I feel weird about the whole "Happy Thanksgiving" experience lately, because the more I learn about the history of the holiday, and the more I see of the weird/stressful way it's celebrated, the more I believe the whole holiday needs a serious revamp.

No, I don't think Thanksgiving should be abolished. I mean, there's nothing inherently problematic, imperialist, or even religious about the idea of setting aside a particular day to deliberately celebrate things in our lives that are good and right.  There's no intrinsic reason not to treat "the last Thursday of the month before winter solstice" as a kind of kick-off for the rest of the winter holidays.

(And yet...count on America to smother a simple, universal idea like "hey, we're alive, and it's good, let's get together and have a feast!" with a metric fuckton of  mythologized, whitewashed, ahistorical, genocidal, Christofascist associations. )

I don't think the current messaging I've seen the last few years (Thanksgiving is irredeemably problematic, don't celebrate,  instead reflect on crimes against humanity committed by people who decided this was a celebration day) is a strategy for successful change.  The idea that a day some people celebrate has bad associations for a person, family, culture, religion or history means everyone should stop  celebrating it has a hint of logical fallacy about it.

(My thought, my space, not an invitation to argue over the ether. I'm well aware I'm a minority opinion among those who generally agree with my other political leanings.)

WHOOPS. That was a bigtime digression away from the original point of my post.  (by which fact you know I am me and not a pod-alien. But anyway.)

I'm thankful for a lot this week. An incomplete list, in no order of importance:

• clear COVID test
• roof overhead, functioning heat, lights, on-demand running hot & cold water, and functioning internet access. NGL I am never not-thankful for those everyday miracles.
• mostly-functioning sense of taste & smell: not enough to adjust recipes "to taste," but enough to enjoy the scent of roasting turkey & the flavor of savory mashed potatoes.
• family & friends.  I am SO thankful for all the people in my life. Always, but especially this year.
• neighbors who raked our front lawn for us overnight (I will thank those neighbors personally as soon as I figure out who did it. Dark of night. Srsly. The grass was still covered when we went out for our sunset walk.)
• The financial freedom to buy foods I want, and the gift of time that goes hand in hand with that, which lets me choose what foods I prepare & which I just buy premade & gobble up.
• Alla y'all. Thank you for being my online audience & being tireless supporters of my storymaking.

There's a lot more, but that's enough for one musing, I do believe. Have a happy & budget-friendly weekend, if you celebrate shopping season, and remember, books make GREAT gifts! I'll post more Pippin pics on Sunday.