Thanksgiving Week has commenced. I worked today (Monday) and I’ll work tomorrow, and then I’ll be off for the rest of the week, give or take. I’ll probably work a little bit here and there. We’ll see.
My son comes home on Wednesday, which is lovely. Wednesday is also potato day; or should I say, Potato Day. That should be a thing; just like the British have Boxing Day on the day after Christmas, we should have Potato Day on the day before Thanksgiving. No one in their right mind is trying to cook the turkey AND mash 10 pounds of potatoes all in one day, and that’s why it’s so important to have Potato Day, when you make your mashed potatoes and refrigerate them overnight in big baking dishes for reheating on Thanksgiving. Plus, I’m all in for multi-day holidays. This country has been through some shit this year. We need a few extra days off here and there.
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It’s Tuesday now, and I’m writing during a quick lunch break. This is my last day in the office until next week. We went to the Capitals game last night, and the vibe was peak holiday week - and the Capitals won. After work today, I will make what I hope will be my last Thanksgiving grocery shopping trip. But probably not. I’ll probably be back at the grocery store tomorrow.
My turkey has been thawing in the refrigerator since Sunday. It still feels frozen but it has two more days. I’ll take it out and sit it on the counter for a little while tomorrow - just long enough to accelerate the thawing process but not long enough to admit the salmonella germs.
I keep thinking about throwing something new into the Thanksgiving dinner mix, but I don’t think I have the creative energy. Fortunately, nobody wants anything new. My Thanksgiving dinner is very popular. My people like it just the way I’ve always made it, and I give the people what they want.
I’m going to decompress for a bit tonight. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. Potato Day magic doesn’t happen on its own. The Great Potato doesn’t come down the chimney with giant bowls of mashed potatoes. It’s me. I’m the magic. I’m the Great Potato
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Today is Potato Day, the Great Potato’s day to shine! It’s still early, and so I’m thinking about potatoes but I haven’t yet begun to peel and boil and mash and whip, but I’ll get started very soon.
Right now, I’m sitting on the couch, half-watching “Julie and Julia,” a movie I’ve seen at least five times. Old movies as background are a treasured Potato Day tradition. I can tell you this with authority, since I invented this holiday.
My sister and I used to talk about how much we wanted an edited version of “Julie and Julia” containing only the Julia scenes. No disrespect to Amy Adams, who is wonderful, but I used to think that Julie Powell was pretty insufferable in this movie. This is odd, because the movie is based on her own book. Then the real Julie Powell died a few years ago at age 49, and I felt bad about my antipathy toward the movie Julie Powell, and I gave her another chance. And she’s fine - not as much fun as Julia, but Julia led a charmed life in postwar Paris and it was pretty easy for her to be a fun person.
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Potato Day, now established as an official holiday, was quite successful. The Great Potato rose out of the potato field and brought giant dishes of mashed potatoes to the most sincere Thanksgiving dinner tables, and there’s no more sincere Thanksgiving dinner table than mine. The Great Potato decides which Thanksgiving dinner tables are the most sincere and since I am the Great Potato, I naturally chose my own table, which radiates sincerity.
Now it’s Thanksgiving. It’s 9:30 AM and I’m about to prep the turkey for the oven, where it will remain for the next five hours or so. Stuffing is prepped, and mashed potatoes are ready to pop back into the oven. There will be peas, corn, salad, Korean side dishes including kimchi, gravy, rolls, and canned jellied cranberry sauce, the best kind. I’ll report back later. It’s time to get going. That turkey’s not going to put itself in the oven.
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By the way: Unlike the Julie/Julia Project, the blog that inspired “Julie and Julia,” this is absolutely not a food blog. I write about cooking at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and maybe Easter. And maybe sometimes when I’m looking for a way to avoid making dinner. That’s all. That’s the extent of the food content that you will find here.
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The day after Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year. It’s 9:30 AM again, and I’m drinking coffee and hanging around the house, one of my favorite things to do. It’s cold today, cold and very bright and clear. Everything looks sunny and clean.
Dinner was perfect, except that the turkey yielded very little in the way of leftovers. But it’s enough for the best of all sandwiches, the turkey on toast with mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and stuffing. I guess I’ll make shepherd’s pie with the rest of the mashed potatoes. Or maybe I won’t because it’s the day after Thanksgiving and I’d like to stay out of the kitchen.
Thanksgiving was a Trump-free day, until almost the end of the day when I picked up my phone and saw that Sarah Beckstrom had died from her wounds. 20 years old. My family are all here, safe and happy, and a family in West Virginia is making plans to bury their beautiful 20-year-old daughter. There’s nothing that this man can’t destroy. Literally nothing.
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I don’t take a whole day to rest very often. Almost never, really. But that’s what I did yesterday. Other than a cold winter walk, I didn’t really leave the house. Other than the usual housework and laundry and daily odds and ends, I didn’t do anything productive. I finished one Nancy Mitford novel and am halfway through another. I watched football with my husband and son. We watched the Capitals win their third straight game. We ate leftovers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I managed to avoid the sight and sound of Donald J. Trump. It’ll be another year before I do that again, but that’s what made the day special. It was a 14/10 day - highly recommended.
It’s Saturday morning now, 9:30 again, and I’m looking out the window at a clear bright sunny day that looks and feels just like yesterday. My son and I are going to put up some Christmas decorations today - not the tree, because it’s far too early, just indoor decorations and house lights. We have some hand-painted wooden Christmas signs. We have snowmen and cardinals and snow globes and a Nativity set and lots of other assorted Christmas trinkets. We don’t overdo it. The overall effect is Christmassy, cozy, and charming if I do say so myself.
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And now it’s Sunday. After days of intense clear cold sunshine, it’s gray and gloomy and raining. It’s supposed to snow. We’ll see.
Yesterday was a get-things-done day. I ran errands, cooked, cleaned, did laundry - I did it all. And my son and I decorated the house for Christmas. We used to do this in mid-December but in 2020, my sons wanted to decorate early so we did everything on the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, and we’ve continued to do that. No tree yet - it’s too early - but all of the other Christmas decorations are up inside and our Christmas lights are up outside. It’s nice to have a full month of Christmas vibe. And it is a vibe. I’m still not super enthusiastic about Christmas, but I’m also not dreading it. So that’s something.
Meanwhile, today feels like a little bit of a letdown. It’s gloomy and grim outside, and I have to do some work for our neighborhood association, and my son goes back to school today. But it’s OK. He’ll be home again in a few weeks, and I’ll power through my meeting notes and RFP, and it’s cozy at home. Tomorrow is December 1, the beginning of the end of this year. I’m sorry that Thanksgiving weekend is over, but I won’t miss the Year of Our Lord 2025.
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