No worries, this isn't a long, rambling post listing all the people I'm thankful to know, the experiences I'm grateful I've had, or all the physical & tangible things I'm privileged to have in my life. I'll save that post for the alternate reality where I become hugely famous and have to give a thank-you speech in front of a live studio audience after I receive a Lifetime Achievement Award. Or something like that.

This is more like a school report on How I Spent My Weird American Holiday Thursday.

Spouseman & hibernate on Thanksgivings. Lots of reasons--for the longest time, we had no other close family in the same state, and/or the day was my single breather between 6 weeks of frantic retail holiday prep and 6 weeks of frenzied retail holiday shopping, neither of us enjoy large gatherings much...the list could go on, but ANYway. It's just not a holiday we're comfortable "celebrating. It has a huge identity crisis and a bunch of unpleasant cultural baggage attached. What is the day dedicated to? Pilgrims? Mayflower? Ugh, no, thanks. Gratitude? For what? Everything? <waves vaguely>

Attending mandatory large family gatherings with hefty dollops of guilt & stress, getting excited about overreating, watching NYC parades & regional football games, and plotting huge consumer spending sprees are strange traditions, that's all I'm saying. I don't know how most of those things are even related to gratitude, but I suspect television marketing may be involved.

BY THE WAY, DID YOU KNOW THE UNITED STATES USED TO JUST THROW "DAYS OF THANKSGIVING" ALL WILLY-NILLY, LIKE, JUST FOR JOLLIES, WHENVER THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FELT SOMETHING NICE HAD HAPPENED WORTH CELEBRATING WITH A DAY OFF? WE DID!

(Okay, there's lots more to it, but my point is, "National Day Of Thanksgiving" didn't start off having ANY association with harvests, bad colonialist propaganda or lies about Pilgrims, much less the whole family, food, & football traditions. Here's a nice explainer from last year: https://billmoyers.com/story/a-national-day-of-thanksgiving/ if you're interested.)

But. I. Digress.

In this household, the only tradition of the third Thursday in November is that I cook a lot of food that goes on steep sale this time of year, Spouseman washes a lot of dishes, we eat some tasty treats but not so much we feel sick, we game or read or watch something fun, and then we enjoy not having to deal with any complicated meal prep or food shopping for at least a week. Yay!

Here are some pics from this year's Kitchen Fun part of the day.

Everything on the plate was from scratch this year. I even made cranberry sauce from scratch for the first time (cranberries were SO CHEAP OMG) I have a soft spot for the canned gelatinous goop, and by ignoring half the recipe instructions I was able to make mine gelatinous & goopy but nicely tart, too. It's a big win & will be repeated.

I forgot to take a picture of the mashed potatoes in their gallon container, but tbh those don't present well except on a plate anyway. Spouseman said he liked the rolls best because they were small & cute. They were also a late addition to the menu. It's the world's easiest bread recipe, quick & fun to make.

Here's a pic from the relaxation part of the day.

We're re-watching Great British Baking Show from the beginning because it's relatively wholesome & brainfree, and I'm reading Sherry Thomas's Lady Sherlock series, also a book called Naked Statistics that I somehow missed back when it first came out. And I'm playing on the computer, and Spouseman is getting in a lot of gaming time. Today is day two of all that fine action, with a full weekend of more ahead. It's what we do. Shopping? THIS weekend of all weekends? OH, HELL NO.

And that's my annual Thanksgiving post. If you've gotten this far, I would like to use this excuse to issue thanks in print to all you wonderful people who read my blathering here, who recommend, gift, and review my existing books, and who offer continued patient encouragements to me during this ongoing, glacial, writing-the-next-book phase I'm still slogging through.

(I think that was a proper sentence. I'm not going back to change it. ANYway.)

That's all for now. Until next time!