Thanksgiving 2018

I scorched the pies and sprained my hand on a nutc
The cat took a startled leap off the couch like a bowling ball with legs and demolished my favorite coffee cup. In a cupboard full of dainty tea cups, the biggest mug I could find as a substitute was the Nutcracker head.

I should not have made fun of him, though, because he was so heavy and oddly shaped that something crucial in my hand gave out while trying to carry my coffee to the couch. I lost exactly the gripping function required for hoisting pies out of the oven, and the entire feast had to be prepared with a forearm and some swearing.

Everything tasted fine anyway. We added red-eye gravy to the eggs Benedict this year, which is a combination that is going down as a new family favorite.

"Wear something nice," I said, chasing the kids together for holiday pictures. So the teenager put on a Steve the Babysitter shirt.

Leif commandeered the camera and took a bunch of blurry pictures of me.

still counts

Thanksgiving at my mother's house was full of cheese, sausage stuffing snitching, and arguments with Alexa over what constitutes "classical Christmas music" (Bach v. bossa nova). Nobody spit food out onto the floor for the cats or caught the bird on fire this year, so we are kind of becoming experts at Holidaying.

one of several birds we did not catch on fire

Instead of going for classy decor, we used a 1970s bedspread as a table cloth, with plastic turkey place mats, circa 1984. The kids were SO IMPRESSED. Why do I bother collecting old silver-plate and pressed glass? I should be buying thrift store cornucopias and platters shaped like cartoon turkeys.

 intense turkey-carving faces 

I did recently buy a salmon-shaped aspic mold, so helloooo Christmas fish mousse.

Happy Thanksgiving, folks.