Tag: Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

You know, back when I worked retail I was always happy to come in on holidays for a few reasons not the least of which was the time and a half.  It was also dead slow which appeals to my laziness.

But most of all I felt I was providing a public service for people who needed stuff when most places were closed.

Just so I’m happy to provide a little light entertainment for you this Thanksgiving in case you need an excuse to get away from your relatives.

Or at least it will give me an excuse to get away from mine.

Anyway I’ll start off this morning with a Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade Open Thread.

A Thanksgiving offering (maybe this is becoming a traditional post)

A ritual and a practice.

At our house, when we have Thanksgiving dinner, we like to stop eating and talking to go around the table clockwise so that each person present can say what s/he is thankful for.  When we first decided to do this, some of our guests felt this was awkward, perhaps embarrassing.  But we don’t start with the guests, so they can get an impression of what expressing gratitude and hearing others express it feels like.  Those in our immediate family understood this and were comfortable enough with it.  After all, at birthdays, we like to go around the table to tell the person celebrating the birthday our many appreciations of him/her.  So on Thanksgiving, it’s a natural enough question, “What are you thankful for this year?”  The answers aren’t always surprising.  We’re thankful for being here another year, for our health however it might then be, for family and friends, for the lives of those now departed, for whatever abundance we may have received, for creativity, for our pets, for our relationships, for our businesses, for our politics, for our dreams and aspirations and hopes, and so on.  We’re thankful for all kinds of things.  You get it, you can probably feel it even reading about doing this.  It’s a Thanksgiving ritual we love.  Feel free to try it out.

I always loved Thanksgiving because, however it was intended or begun, it seemed to be about gratitude.  For years I’ve had a practice I’ve done.  Sometimes I do it every day.  Sometimes I do it once a month.  Sometimes I don’t do it for a long time.  It depends.  What do I do? I make a list of the things I am thankful for.  I number them as I write them down, and I feel my gratitude for each item as I write it before going on to the next.  So, I write, “1. my good health, 2. the life of Dr. King, 3. compassion for my seeming enemies, 4. the novels of Cesar Aira.”  And so on.  Until I reach 50.  I do this, writing and feeling, until I have a list of 50 items or more that I have enjoyed and felt my thanks for.  When I am feeling pinched, stressed, exhausted, depressed, or any other “negative” emotion, it seems to take me a very long time to find items, to write them down and really to feel them.  When I am feeling expansive, relaxed, rested, optimistic, or any other “positive” emotion, it takes me virtually no time to write and enjoy the list.  Why do this exercise?  Because it’s almost magical.  And it lights me up.  Feel free to try it out.

Was it Meister Eckhart who wrote, “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice?”  I agree.

May all of you have a happy Thanksgiving.

—————————–

simulposted at The Dream Antilles

Whether you are going out to a family gathering, having the clan over or just a quiet dinner for two, Thanksgiving can be a daunting affair and for some more stressful than enjoyable. For the last 20 or more years I haven’t cooked Thanksgiving dinner. My daughter took over that task because I was usually working the night before and that night. Emergencies usually don’t take a holiday break, in fact they usually break out. This year is no different except that I only work per diem in a very small ER 5 minutes from my house. I still  do some of the shopping, pre-prep and desserts. Anyway, I digress.

 I am going to post a few of the healthy easy to make recipes for side dishes that are tasty (tested a few of them on my fussy food critics) and can be prepared ahead, easing some of that stress on the big day. I’m also going to give you the best instruction for a roast turkey that will be cooked through and NOT dry compliments of Alton Brown who makes cooking entertaining and educational. There are several web sites that I use and I found them well worth the free subscription. Epicurious is indispensable. The site also helps with wine selections.

 I do not stuff the turkey either. It takes less time and the turkey cooks more evenly.

 There one piece of equipment that is worth the investment and, if you’re a cook, will wonder how you ever lived without it, an oven thermometer with a probe and an alarm that tells you when the correct temperature has been reached. The one I have also gives the oven temperature. It’s not absolutely necessary but takes out the guessing if the meat is done.

 For those who are vegetarians, The NYT has quite a few recipes for Thanksgiving

Going Vegetarian for Thanksgiving

Epicurious also has suggestions for Thanksgiving Dinner under $80, in 60 minutes and on a diet

Thanksgiving Recipes, Menus, and Videos

cross-posted from The Dream Antilles

A ritual and a practice.

At our house, when we have Thanksgiving dinner, we like to stop eating and talking to go around the table clockwise so that each person present can say what s/he is thankful for.  When we first decided to do this, some of our guests felt this was awkward, perhaps embarrassing.  But we don’t start with the guests, so they can get an impression of what expressing gratitude feels like. Those in our immediate family understood this and were comfortable enough with it.  After all, at birthdays, we like to go around the table to tell the person celebrating the birthday our many appreciations of him/her.  So on Thanksgiving, it’s a natural enough question, “What are you thankful for this year?”  The answers aren’t always surprising.  We’re thankful for being here another year, for our health however it might then be, for family and friends, for the lives of those now departed, for whatever abundance we may have received, for creativity, for our pets, for our relationships, for our businesses, for our politics, for our dreams and aspirations and hopes, and so on.  You get it, you can probably feel it even reading about doing this.  It’s a Thanksgiving ritual we love.  Feel free to try it out.

I always loved Thanksgiving because, however it was intended or begun, it seemed to be about gratitude.  For years I’ve had a practice I’ve done.  Sometimes I do it every day.  Sometimes I do it once a month.  Sometimes I don’t do it for a long time.  It depends.  What do I do? I make a list of the things I am thankful for.  I number them as I write them down, and I feel my gratitude for each item as I write it before going on to the next.  So, I write, “1. my good health, 2. the life of Dr. King, 3. compassion for my seeming enemies, 4. the novels of Cesar Aira.”  And so on.  Until I reach 50.  I do this, writing and feeling, until I have a list of 50 items or more that I have enjoyed and felt my thanks for.  When I am feeling pinched, stressed, exhausted, depressed, or any other “negative” emotion, it seems to take me a very long time to find items, to write them down and really to feel them.  When I am feeling expansive, relaxed, rested, optimistic, or any other “positive” emotion, it takes me virtually no time to write and enjoy the list.  Why do this exercise?  Because it’s almost magical.  And it lights me up.  Feel free to try it out.

Was it Meister Eckhart who wrote, “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice.”  I agree.

May all of you have a happy Thanksgiving.

^{I’ve again been entreated by numerous people to post the Thanksgiving Diary that I’ve put up here the past four years. I’m reposting a slightly edited version of last year’s entry. For those of you who’ve read it before, I apologize. I also urge you to read my friend Winter Rabbit’s The Massacre For Which Thanksgiving Is Named.}

• • •

I forced myself to watch the History Channel’s Desperate Crossing: The Untold Story of the Mayflower last weekend. I don’t feel as if I totally wasted my time. Including performances and interviews of some Wampanoags, descendants of the indigenes who saw the Pilgrims make landfall 388 years ago, made the program a good deal more palatable than it might have been.

I would have preferred a bit more about how one reason the Pilgrims were “persecuted” in England and Holland was because of their efforts to get everyone to comply with their own crabbed view of religion. Something they and the Puritans who followed them also did here in America. Not dissimilar from what some modern day others would like to do now. But what an improvement the program was over past efforts.

Well, that gosh darn liberal media is up to their same ol’ tricks again!  I’m tryin’ to do this cute thing about pardonin’ a turkey there in the spirit of Thanksgiving.  Good patriotic folks love it when I do that stuff!  But can ya trust a liberal elite cameraman to frame the shot to not make me look stupid?  Or clueless?  Or insensitive?  I think we all know the answer to that question.  

(Now, I should warn ya that the following video may be disturbing to some viewers because I attempt to speak the English language.  Oh, and also some turkeys get killed.)