Thanks A Lot, Pilgrims!

Okay, time to quit supposing. It's not 20 years ago, we all have Thanksgiving dinners to prepare, and why am I wasting time in the blogosphere right now, anyway? Probably because I have a Thanksgiving dinner to prepare, but I don't know who's coming. We always wait until the last minute and invite whoever's alone (I mean, people that we know - not perfect strangers) to come eat. Those are the only people who might want to share their holiday with a teenage girl casting death glares at everyone, a whining 5-year-old, a spoiled 2-year-old girl (who's cute as a button, but loud), a 10-year-old vegetarian who nags people not to let their turkey touch his plate, and a 7-year-old boy who has just learned to burp at the table. And even then, the anticipated guest sometimes turns us down, thinking that one of those Swanson frozen dinners in the peace and quiet of his own home will do him just fine. In other words, we only get the truly desperate.

Thanksgiving just ain't what it used to be.

But that's okay, it will be over soon. And then there's Chanukah, because my side of the family's Jewish. Luckily, Theo likes to fry up potato latkes (anything to avoid doing his Chemistry homework); but I still need to locate the dreidels, the menorah, the candles, the Chanukah tablecloth - all of which (in an unfallen world) would be located in a box marked, well, Chanukah. But they aren't. And then I have to make the life-or-death decision of whether or not I can use the homemade applesauce from last year as a side for the latkes. Would you like your holiday celebration tainted with the risk of botulism, or no? It would certainly add a certain frisson of excitement to our party, I'm sure - like Russian Roulette, only more fatal.

And then, because I wasn't smart enough to marry within my faith and keep my life simple, we have Christmas. Throw in 2 flute recitals, the church Christmas pageant, and the New Year's Neighborhood Open House that I told everyone I was hosting, and things start getting a bit crazed around here. Because I'm expected to keep all my regular balls that I juggle up in the air while I take care of these extras.

But, I did manage to order the Christmas photocards, a task which was time consuming, folks, in the way, say, that evolution is time consuming. No matter that I have well over 2000 digital photos online for this past year. I had to find the right combo of four photos to show off each kid, plus I had to find a template which will offend neither side of the family (Christian and Jewish, remember? Thank Allah there are no Muslims to deal with), plus I had to make myriad other decisions (20 or 40? Photo or Stationery Paper? Express Ship? Text of Greeting?). In short, Larry found me actually sobbing at the keyboard at 10 last night, unable to navigate my way through the maze of choices being offered to me. He had to take over.

(Silver lining - I got to use a line from Casablanca: "Oh, I don't know what's right anymore," I said, in my best Ingrid Bergman voice. "You'll have to do the thinking for both of us.")

So that's done. And I remembered to start defrosting the turkey. What's up with all those weird safety instructions for thawing out old Tom, anyway? If cooking him for 5 hours doesn't kill whatever's dangerous, I don't think it matters how you defrost it. And no one's died yet. That's why I don't serve the applesauce at Thanksgiving - if someone did die, we wouldn't know which poisonous foodstuff to blame.

Hmm...getting a little morbid for the holidays, aren't we? Time to sign off - tomorrow's baking day and I need to defrost the pumpkin for the pies. (Just had to slip that hyperlink in there - it makes me feel so blog-savvy.)