A Radical Thanksgiving (Oh, Yeah!)

Our Thanksgiving this year is going to be structured differently than all others we've had. This change from the usual was probably easier to implement because there are just the three of us celebrating the day this year.

In late October, I got up enough personal gumption to present my plan to my husband and daughter explaining that the last several years I've come to dread Thanksgiving. (Seriously, I really have.) Simply put, it's all the work involved. Usually the first of Thanksgiving week I spend buying/gathering together food and drinks for the day. Then on Wednesday I do as much advance prep work as I can, and the day of Thanksgiving I spend the whole day making the meal, going through the (admittedly) stressful coordination that is required for all parts of the meal to be ready at once (hot dishes hot, cold dishes cold) as it hits the table. Then there's the clean-up afterwards. Unbelievably, it takes me very close to one whole hour to get everything cleaned up and in storage containers and stashed away in the refrigerator. The last few years, my dear hubby (bless his heart) has been doing all the dishes (we have no automatic dishwasher) which has been, needless to say, much appreciated by me.

I've been finding that I don't even enjoy eating the meal after all the work put into it and the days spent handling it. I've gotten grumpier and grumpier the last couple of years and have decided that the situation is not working for me, and it's stupid not to try something else that feels better.

So I presented a plan for a different Thanksgiving to my two favorite people.

What I'm going to do this year is to still have it be a "holiday" day, we won't forget about Thanksgiving and treat it as just another day of the year. I've even gotten my husband to agree to take the WHOLE day off, no desk work or any other type of "work" he would normally do.

I'm taking the time and effort to make the house all spiffy and holiday festive.

We won't starve because of lack of food. I'll have a cheese plate with crackers, Dill Pickle Roll Ups, Smoked Turkey Canapes, smoked fish, a veggie plate with dip, pickled herring, egg nog, wine, beer, tea, coffee, plenty of yummy stuff. I'll probably even bake a pumpkin pie because that sounds good to me. But no set dinner time or sit down at the table. Just munching as one feels like it.

I'm planning on spending the day lounging, sitting in front of the fire, reading, doing handwork, visiting, going for a leisurely hike . . . whatever feels good to me.

It might not be anybody else's idea of how Thanksgiving should be, but lately Thanksgiving hasn't been for me how I think it should be either. Happily, hubby and daughter have both agreed (willingly, too, I might say) to go along with my plan. I'm not saying this arrangement will be forever or even for more than this one year. But for the first time in YEARS, since I made this decision in late October, I have been looking forward to the day more than I can explain. Best of all, I can't help but congratulate myself for being brave enough to break tradition, step out from under a huge load that didn't feel good and implement something that feels better (oh, so MUCH better) to me.

A White Thanksgiving

Call it global warming, call it merely a historically repetitive cycle we're going through once again, but we've not had a Thanksgiving with snow on the ground for many years in these parts. It looks as if all that is going to be changed this year.

On top of the three or so inches on the ground, we've had snow falling since noon today and although there has been no great accumulation, the ground is definitely white, the temperature is great for snowing at 27 degrees and the forecast is for a few more inches by midnight.

This snow on top of soft ice will not make for good ice skating on our pond for our Thanksgiving Day fresh air and exercise so we're thinking of hiking the loop up through our woods in back instead. That is if anyone can be roused from chairs in front of the fire. Not that there will be anything wrong with enjoying that either. A day of total lounging around sounds pretty good.

This Week's Agenda

Yesterday Erin at Garden Now - Think Later! listed her week's agenda for this short week leading up to Thanksgiving. She also asked us readers how we all are dealing with holiday deadlines. (Denial seems like a good option to me right now.) I'm putting my head in the sand and refusing to even think about Christmas yet, but I'm afraid there's no avoiding Thanksgiving at this late date.

So here's my list, Erin, of what needs to get accomplished around here this (short -- eeek!) week.

This is the present status of the wall hanging I'm making for my daughter's office door. Long way to go. It needs an appliqued Christmas tree with presents in the center and a "Welcome" panel made and added to the bottom. Fortunately for me, it does not have to be done before Thanksgiving. But it does have a December 4th deadline so the more I can work on it now, the less frantic I'll be later.

I've jumped into some heavy duty housecleaning that's been put off for too long. This does have to be done (because I say so, that's why) by Thanksgiving.

I want to spend Wednesday prepping all the food for Thursday just so I can spend the time Thanksgiving enjoying the holiday.

The usual weekly laundry and ironing need to be done. That should get taken care of today.

I need to make more pie crusts for the freezer. (Pumpkin Pie on Turkey Day!) The above cherry pie was made this past weekend with the very last crusts I had on hand.

I'm overdue to sort through our apples we have in storage. As I've been grabbing ones to use, I've spotted some that are . . . um, spotted. They need to either be used up by the cook around here (!), or tossed to the poultry.

A run to the dairy farm is in order (definitely today) to resupply our dairy products.

As part of my cleaning frenzy, I took down and washed all the valances above the windows. Since they are all long skinny pieces (the valances) they always come out of the washer looking like this. How DOES this happen??

So they are now washed and dried but need to be ironed and put back up on the nekked windows.

I still have one of my Pay It Forward gifts to get sent off in the mail before December. Can't show what this hand made item is (it's a secret for the recipient), but I will say it involves some time spent in front of an open fire knitting and sipping. A couple of hours (spent knitting, not sipping) should be enough to finish it up. That will be enjoyable (both the knitting and a limited amount of sipping) and a fun thing to do.

That's my week's agenda. Now I'll repeat Erin's question and ask: How are you all dealing with holiday deadlines?

Oven Cookin'

The potato gods really smiled on us this past summer and gave us some wonderfully flavorful potatoes. I'm not sure how long the supply will last but we sure are enjoying the potatoes while we have them.

This potato dish is pretty basic and easy to put together while at the same time being more than just plain old potatoes. Next time you have the oven going, you might want to give it a try. The aroma while it's baking will make stomachs growl!

EASY POTATO CASSEROLE

4 cups thinly sliced potatoes
1-1/2 cups thinly sliced onions
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup grated cheddar or Colby cheese (more if desired)
Salt and pepper

Layer the potatoes and onions in a greased 8" or 9" square baking dish. Generously sprinkle each layer with salt and pepper. Pour melted butter over the top.

Here the casserole is ready to go into the oven.

Bake covered in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes. Uncover and sprinkle grated cheese over top and return to oven until cheese is melted and/or browned to your liking. You can leave the cheese off entirely, if you wish. Return the uncovered casserole to the oven until the top layer of potatoes is browned and slightly crispy.

This is the dish when I pulled it out of the oven last night. I usually like the top to be a little more browned and crispy, but the rest of the meal was ready to go on the table so I didn't want to wait for this to brown more. (Coordination of a meal is hard, isn't it? Someday I'm gonna get the hang of it. ;o])

If you're serving a big group, double all the ingredients and bake in a 9" x 13" pan. (It's a good dish to take to a potluck because, if wrapped for the trip, it holds the heat well.)

Leftovers are great for breakfast. I warm the potatoes in a skillet, crack an egg for each serving on top of the potatoes, cover and cook over a low heat until the eggs are done.

I make these potatoes often just so we can have the leftovers for breakfast for a couple of mornings. And that's just what I'm going to go make right now. A super breakfast for this wintry-looking morning. We got about an inch of new snow overnight but, drat and blast, the temp is back up into the low thirties which will make the roads bad again today.

Who Wants To Test The Ice?

We always shoot for skating on the pond on Thanksgiving Day but the last few years, the ice either hasn't been thick enough or the pond hasn't been frozen at all.

Last night the temperature finally dropped down into the teens which had been predicted for over a week but hadn't yet come to pass. This morning when we got up it was 12 degrees.

Does that ice look nice for skating or what? I tried to get hubby to venture out on it to test it out, but he wouldn't do it. (Sometimes I get no cooperation whatsoever.) We think the ice is 1/2" to 1" thick so if this weather continues. we just might be able to ice skate on Thanksgiving this year.

This shot of Zoey was taken this morning. She's about as close to under the wood stove as she could get without getting singed. Notice her front feet on the stove board that protects the floor? That stove board gets HOT, but it must have felt good to her cold tootsies.

Yessiree, folks, looks like we're moving into real winter time. Now, please bring on the snow!

Baby, It's Cold . . . Inside

These mornings when we force ourselves to leave the warm, cozy cocoon of our bed, we're finding the temperature of the house is a mite on the chilly side. Usually in the low 60s which means it doesn't take us long to get dressed swathing ourselves in several layers of warm clothing.

I couldn't resist taking this picture of hubby at the breakfast table one morning this week. In defense of his outfit, he had just come down from his office which is the coldest room in the house.

The little bit uncomfortable hour or two in the morning before we get things warmed up is nobody's fault but our own. We haven't transitioned into full winter heating mode yet. We're still burning soft wood and choosing not to bank the wood stove to hold a fire overnight. We both prefer sleeping in a cooler temp, but maybe not so much functioning in that same cooler temp first thing in the morning!

Today was a perfect day to be at home. We had a little over 1/2" of new snow over night but the temperature was already 33 degrees when we got up. Then it went up to 34 degrees and starting raining. Ugh. Lots of warnings that the roads were slippery. Hubby had planned on working on the siding on the garage again today but with the rain and very stiff wind that came up, he quickly decided he could find something else profitable to do . . . inside.

We're having a very quiet Friday night with Christmas carols on the stereo (it just seems right), the wood stove crackling and Zoey the Wonder Dog snoring on her bed. I had a beer with our dinner pizza tonight and it just about put me under the teeble . . . tubble . . . I mean table. Hic. Gotta go to bed now.