It’s already December 1st,  talking about Thanksgiving feels passe. This year Thanksgiving was epic for several reasons.  It was the first holiday I have hosted for many people.  We raised our own turkey.  I made all the pies, well, I bought one and made four.  Finally, there was a wonderful amount of snow on the ground.  My favorite holiday was fantastic.  Here are the top seven things about my Thanksgiving.

7.  Whipped Cream Party

I wasn’t sure how much heavy cream to whip up for the fruit salad and as a topping for my beautiful pies.  So, I whipped it all.  I am not sure how many cartons it involved, but I had a large mixing bowl of fluffy white stuff and wound up using only a fraction of it.  My sister jokingly mention that afterward, we could have a whipped cream party.  My Midwestern mother said in her perfect Minnesotan accent, “Thaat Sounds Dirtee!”  Oh, mom, I love you.

6. The Parade

The Max had a punishment which was to end on Thanksgiving.  I told him it would be over early if he sat and watched The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in it’s entirety.  So, the parade was on all morning and nobody fought me for the remote.

5. Green Jello Mold Salad

Growing up in Minnesota, green Jello is a major food group.  This is especially true if your family attends church potlucks in the basement of your local worship building.  My grandma’s Green Jello Mold Salad was the best, I tried to duplicate it, and failed.  But it was still green Jello mixed with the unimaginable.

4. Sled-boarding

As long as I can remember our family does one of two things on Thanksgiving night.  We either go to a movie or we sled.  The nearest theater is not near at all, so I was very thankful for the foot of snow on the ground.  All the wee ones stood on their sleds and pretended to snow board with them.

3. The house was warm

We have heaters here in the Pilver house, just not enough.  All the smaller rooms are toasty and warm when the heaters are on, but the main room with the 20 foot ceiling is typically chilly, got down to 45 degrees in there last week during a cold snap.  However, with twenty people milling about and the oven on for many hours, things were juct fine and toasty in every corner of our home.

2.The Guests

I am not going to post a picture of everyone who was there, because I don’t have a photo with everyone in it.  Eighteen people were packed into my home for a dozen hours, give or take, and we all had a smashing good time.

1. The Bird

Last spring I stopped by the feed store and bought three teeny turkeys.  Over the summer and fall they got fat, feathered and ornery.  While, of course, they were well taken care of, they were also looked at as food.  I often have people asking if it’s hard to eat animals you raise and so far the answer is not at all.  It is satisfying to be able to know where your food came from and what the animals ate before you eat them. The turkey we chose last Thursday morning was a whopper.  After he was gutted and plucked he was still over 30 pounds.  If we had followed traditional cooking times the bird would have been done  last night.  Instead we cranked the oven and rubbed a lot of butter on his breast to keep him from drying out.  It worked too, best turkey I ever ate.

So there it is, seven things that were great about Thanksgiving.  I hope you were blessed as well.  Now let’s get a move on to mistletoe and candy canes!

Ever seen those vintage aluminum Christmas trees with the lit up color wheel?

I want one so badly.  I love mid-century modern furnishings.  While I cannot figure out a way to either afford them or make them work in our mountain log home, I did acquire some old Christmas decor that satisfied my nostalgic addiction  for the time being.  And then I made a vlog.

HOLY YES! CLICK ME!

Curiosity led me on a google search today to see if there was a website outlining all the holiday specials in one spot.  The website leads me to believe that it will also add more shows when they have been announced by each network.  If you’ll notice, it is very heavy on the ABC Family listings for their 25 Days of Christmas annual event.

So, anyway, score!  I have lots more to write soon, including pictures of my glorious Thanksgiving turkey all basted up in my oven.  Hope your holiday was fan-tab!

I used to be on the internet more, a lot more than now.  I used to talk only to The Max and my mother at night with the exception of those of you who I texted, Imed, emailed, what have you.

I used to read a dozen or more blogs a day, comment on them all, and then write one of my own.

I used to sit and dream of a time when I would have a real companion in the house to talk to and spend face-to-face time with.

I used to work Monday through Friday…for almost ten years.  I had a schedule, it was fantastic.  Now I work whenever I can, often 7 or more days in a row.

So, I used to talk to you more, you sometimes friends of mine.  I talked to you at night, when I was alone in the house and working my regular schedule. You know who you are.  Some of you are less available now, like I am.  Some of you are just as or more present as before.

I miss my Sometimes Friends.  Sometimes sounds like a bad thing, but I think those are some of the best friends.  Those who you can say a quick hello and have it turn into a three hour long conversation, you make my days fantastic.

It’s not December yet, but I have a resolution.  Well, two.  First, I will get myself a regular schedule by 2012, and in turn, talk to you sometimes friends more.  Then, I will eat five different colored fruits and veggies every day.

I hate writing about things that could brew controversy.  Mostly because I despise typical debates with obvious statements that have been vocalized a million times over. I don’t know why I am mentioning this, but I am.

A recent friendly conversation about the use of the word ‘holiday’ to replace ‘Christmas’ had me thinking, “What would Jesus do?”  While I cannot speak for the Son of God, I can imagine what his ideas would be on this beaten-to-death topic.

Jesus does not care.  Jesus did not ask us to have a month long or longer celebration of his birth using red and green streamers and Santa Claus and snowman shaped cookies.  Jesus does not mind if the stores write Holiday Sale!!! when they are trying to push more units of the most recent electronics.  I’ll even bet he would rather  not have his name attached to any retail store in the first place.

I understand that the season has been taken from a one day celebration of the birth of the Christian Messiah and erupted into an enormous and often stressful season, having very little to do with religion.  I enjoy the season, as it brings me great memories of family and food and toys and television specials.   It bothers me that some (not all) people claiming to want to put the Christ back in Christmas will fight for things like having twinkle lights state the name of their savior as though Jesus cares one way or another.

Let’s face the fact that Christmas is December 25th and the Holiday Season is two months of cider and sleigh rides and try to understand that Jesus cannot be encapsulated in your red and green M & M’s.

I have a job, and I like it.  At my job, I make very little money.  No one could call me very materialistic, so for the most part it’s OK that I take home the same amount of cash as a pimply teenager.  But, The Max starts college in nine years, so I have to think of someone other than myself when I consider my current employment status.  Therefore, I look for  new jobs.

Finding a new place of business turned into a fun little hobby of mine.  Sure, I apply at all those places I am well qualified to succeed in, but alongside those boring nine to fivers, I have also been applying at places that will never hire me, ever.

Just last week I applied to be a news reporter, a DJ, and a writer for a well known sports broadcasting company.  The final of those three has passed me onto the second round of eliminations.  I’m a bit shocked, my next steps with the company may actually involve effort on my part.

I have an ink signed rejection letter from  The Late Show with David Letterman.  That may be my favorite rejection for a job inquiry.  I also played phone tag with a newspaper for about a month before they lost all interest.

Some could see this as discouraging.  I proudly cling to my rejections and beaten down efforts.  I’m beginning to believe that starting at the top and working your way down is a far more pleasant ride.

School has been in session for two months and I have already been called in twice for parent/teacher conferences.  I am the proud owner of a nine year old that does not stop talking, ever.

As expected, the most recent trip to the elementary school involved his teacher dancing around the letters, ADHD.   When I told her he had been tested twice, once with a hearty, “He has severe ADHD” and the other expert said, “He most definately does not have ADHD!”  she seemed relieved.  It was easier to have me know he may have ADHD from another source than herself.

I like Max’s teacher.   She’s a funny, smart, well cultured lady who obviously enjoys teaching and my son loves her class.  But why oh why do I have to feel the need to not only tell every teacher every year, but the same teachers over and over that I would rather not use prescription drugs to “help” my child? In addition, it irks me to my core that each teacher/principal/student counselor team I have ever met with always says the same thing, “Max cannot help his behavior.  He has no choice.”  He seems to have a choice at home, when he knows punishment is lurking behind every outburst.  I tell them to be harder on him but my words are ignored each time.

Well, I must be a pushover too, cause after the most recent conference,Mr. Pilver made new rules.  No TV.  No video games.  No computer.  No dessert (that one was me).

It’s working.  We have requested that Max be sent home with daily reports, so that we know his behavior on a regular basis without being called on the phone when things have gone too far.  They have all been positive.  I am sure he’ll have tougher days, but so far he is paralleling that good behavior he’s shown at home.   He has gone from a D average in spelling, the class the teacher said he paid zero attention in because there wasn’t enough creativity in it for him, to five weeks of 100% tests.  And I don’t buy that creativity thing.  He has begun to sing the letters in a tune in order to remember.

I am sure tweaks will have to be made, but this whole no electronics/no sweets thing is brilliant!  We haven’t followed it true for every occasion, it was just Halloween.  But for the first time, Max still has most of his candy after a week.  He barely even pays attention to it.

I’m curious about what other parents looking for an alternative to ADHD prescription drugs do to help out their kids.  So curious that I may just read a real book (with pages!) on the subject.

Seemingly every town and city across the United States hosts a natural foods store, our town is no different.  Last night, after a week of hacking from bronchitis, I stomped into Bear Foods determined to find a potion to relieve my symptoms or hopefully cure me.

Quickly I found cough syrup that would bring me the sensation I was drinking hippies.   I had time to kill. The Max was learning how to become a man at his weekly Cub Scouts meeting which would not be over for another forty-five minutes.  I roamed the aisles in search of absolutely nothing.  Seasnax are what was found.

Seasnax claim to exist as a healthy alternative to chips, and strangely addictive to boot.  Trying new foods is an activity I am totally down with, but Seasnax does not appear to be food.  Have you ever left a plastic container in the fridge for so long that it’s contents are dried out and decrepit to the point of nonrecognition?  If so, then you know what Seasnax looks like.

The chipper cashier grew giddy as she saw my snack purchase and repeated the label’s claim, “These are so addictive!” she told me.  Perfect.  I was hoping I could become addicted to a food that cost 64 dollars a pound.

There are five sheets of delicate green seaweed in each package.  Gingerly, I tore off a piece and popped it into my mouth.  I’m not sure how to properly describe the taste.  The flavor is not offensive to the point you need to spit it out immediately, which was a relief because the seaweed sort of sticks to your mouth like a Listerine Breath Strip.  I think if I bent down at the ocean, and peeled a section of seaweed off a rock and ate that, the taste would be similar.  You get the sensation you are eating the ocean.

What I cannot figure out is how they become addictive.  Unless the reasoning lies in that you cannot believe what you just experienced, therefore repeated bites follow.

I won’t be eating the rest of my Seasnax.  But I will send the remaining sheets to you if you give me your address.

Every year before Thanksgiving, I put in an offer to make the pies for our family gathering.  Last year I won. I do consider it winning.  Think about it, you can bring the rolls, green bean casserole, or pies.  Which is the most glamorous?

This year, as I have mentioned, the Thursday holiday will be at my home.  I get to delegate who prepares what.   This is an advantage.  For instance, nobody makes better stuffing than my mom.  Guess what I am going to ask her to prepare?

Since I am doing pie, the most important item after the bird, I figured dessert needs to be good enough for people to talk about long after the day has ended.  So, last night I practiced.

***WARNING-I am about to brag***

This is the result.  A truly home made pumpkin pie.  From the crust to the roasting of an actual pumpkin and carving out it’s innards, I did it all.  It is the best pie of any variety I have ever consumed.  The pumpkin flavor is far stronger, so if you are on the fence about pumpkin pie to begin with, this may not be your thing.  For that reason I also plan to make a pumpkin-chocolate pie in addition this marvel.  I’ll add one or two other pies in there as well.  I think an apple pie is in order, and then maybe something different that the usual such as key lime or cherry.

Only 23 days remain before Thanksgiving.  I hope the turkeys don’t fatten too much before then, already all three appear too large for the oven.

All Hallows Christmas Season Eve is over.  I haven’t posted much this week.  I haven’t even read many blogs.  This is not normal for myself.  I spent the week working and preparing for The Max’s Halloween themed birthday party.  It was a success.  Have a look at my son and one of his guests:

I am thankful and giddy that the kids enjoyed themselves so much.  I am not a party thrower by nature, anxiety consumed me prior to the occasion.

Tonight we ventured out and took candy from the giving.   Max ate steadily the whole way home and crashed immediately following the sugar rush.

Shhhh…don’t wake him.  I need to take down the orange and black decor.  It’s passe at this point.  I’ve participated in secret green and red meetings all autumn long with a fellow Christmas lover and the past few days our excitement nearly boiled over.  There’s no more need to hide the shame, Enjoy.  Buy some eggnog.  Sing a carol.  I’m breaking my Thanksgiving only in November rule.  It’s Christmas time dammit.