Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, making today, I suppose, Thanksgiving Eve. But to me, it is Potato Day. I’m serious about Thanksgiving mashed potatoes. I make them from scratch, and I make a lot of them. It’s a day-before endeavor, not a day-of thing. Thankfully, mashed potatoes lend themselves very well to advance preparation. What you want to do is make your mashed potatoes, spread them out in a baking dish, cover with aluminum foil, and refrigerate overnight. Then warm the dish up in the oven the next day. Perfect.
If you’re cooking the entire Thanksgiving dinner, as I do, it’s definitely advisable to do some of the hard part in advance so you can do things other than cook on the day itself, like take a walk and watch movies and avoid the news and have your first glass of wine right around 3 PM. So today, I’ll peel carrots, tear up bread and chop onions and celery for stuffing (almost as important as the potatoes), and make ten pounds’ worth of mashed potatoes. Oh, and I’ll bark orders all day long. That is my favorite part.
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My husband called me from work about 20 minutes after I wrote this. “I told you that the chimney sweep is coming, right?” Well chim chiminy chim chiminy chim chim cherroo no you absolutely did not, and why would you schedule a chimney sweep to come here on the day before gosh-darn Thanksgiving? Not only was the chimney sweep coming, but he was on his way when I was up to my neck in potatoes. Thankfully, the whole thing took less than half an hour, and the chimney sweep people were competent and capable and left no mess behind. But still.
Today is Thanksgiving. The turkey has been in the oven since about 9:15 AM, and should be ready at about 3. The starting times for everything else are staggered and ideally everything should be ready at about the same time, but I fly by the seat of my pants on Thanksgiving and a lot is left to chance. It’ll all be fine.
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Every holiday, I peruse the internet for new recipe ideas. I’ve made the same menu for Thanksgiving and Christmas, with slight variations, for decades now, and I think that people will get bored and that I should try something new. But then I get overwhelmed with indecision and I end up doing the same thing I always do, and everyone loves it.
And everyone did love it. We had kind of a perfect Thanksgiving. Morning rain gave way to clouds with tiny little hints of sun, and my sons joined me on my annual turkey-is-in-the-oven walk around the neighborhood. The sun started really breaking through the cloud cover just as we turned the corner back on to our street, and the rest of the day was clear and bright but subdued - very Novemberish. We took the annual photo of the boys and their cousins with their grandmother with a backdrop of November trees and November sunlight and crunchy dead leaves. We hung around outside despite the cold, and watched football and Christmas movies, and ate like there was no tomorrow. I was so full of holiday chill that I took a nap before cleaning up, and that turned out to be a great decision because my husband and sons did 80 percent of the clean-up while I slept on the couch. See, I keep thinking that there must be a way to improve my holiday dinners, and sleeping on the couch is a huge improvement over cleaning up food and washing dishes, so maybe change is good sometimes.
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It’s Saturday now, the last day of November. It’s hard to believe that we’re actually still in the same month that began with the 2024 election. I remember the first Saturday of November, walking from the Metro station to Gallaudet University for a swim meet, and thinking that this was it, the last weekend before we’d elect our first woman President and FINALLY put the Trump era behind us…that seems so long ago.
Let’s not think about it, OK? Let’s think about Christmas.
It’s very cold today, at least for here. A high temperature of 35 is cold anywhere, actually, but it’s really cold for Maryland in what is technically still autumn. We’re putting up our Christmas decorations. My son and I went out this morning and bought some extra lights and Command strips. I cleared away some pictures and decorative objects to make room for Christmas things, and I’m about halfway through placing all of the indoor decorations. My husband and sons are outside hanging lights. I took a break to eat the best sandwich that a person can eat: turkey, mashed potato, stuffing, cranberry sauce, white toast, salt and pepper and a little mayo. It was perfection. Thanksgiving dinner is an absolute shit ton of work but that sandwich is worth a day and a half in the kitchen. Later on, I’ll bundle up and walk that sandwich off. There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.
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That’s nonsense of course, there is absolutely such a thing as bad weather, but my rather ugly puffy jacket kept me warm enough for a brisk walk with my friend and her dog and a big stick. There is a pitbull in the neighborhood who keeps getting loose, and he’s been spotted several times during the last few days, including by my friend and her dog, who had a very unpleasant encounter with this canine menace. I picked up a big stick just in case, but thankfully, we did not need it.
Other than walking and cooking and cleaning and decorating and Christmas shopping and hanging out with my kids, I haven’t done much this weekend except to avoid the news. My no Trump on weekends policy is in full effect again. I’ve watched movies old and new: The Holdovers (a new holiday favorite), Wicked (a Wednesday night showing with my family - we loved it), Dead Poets Society (my youngest had never seen it), A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (one of my favorites of the last few years), Saturday Night (we rented it - it was quite good and I might have more to say about it later) and of course bits and pieces of Elf and Christmas Vacation. The best way to spread Christmas cheer is to not think about Trump for a few days. We haven’t looked at news coverage in any form since Wednesday, and we are just about the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse.
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It was an almost-perfect 5-day weekend. The Capitals are winning left and right, and the kids were home, and the house is decorated for Christmas, except for the tree. It’s too early for the tree. As always, I didn’t mind coming back to work this morning, even though it was freezing cold and dark when I woke up. I pulled out the wool and cashmere this weekend. We’re in for a week of actual winter weather and when high temperatures are expected to remain in the 30s, I dress for warmth.
Santa Claus works one day a year, but I work every day. As we all know, Santa Claus is actually me and every other woman with a family, and now that we’re done making Thanksgiving happen, it’s time to turn our attention to Christmas. I’m making my lists and I’m checking them twice and then checking them again. My chimney is clean now but there won’t be any obese dudes sliding through it to deliver holiday magic. I’m the magic. It’s me.
Meanwhile, I didn’t let the specter of the looming Trump presidency ruin our Thanksgiving and I’m not going to let it ruin Christmas either. It was a nice vacation but it’s time to get busy again.
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