Thanks

We gave thanks! (Though the political climate put a wet blanket on our thanky-ness. Cook, on his turn to offer up a thing to be thankful for, said glumly "We don't have Mussolini for president.")

I forgot to say a thing I was thankful for, so I'm offering it now: I'm thankful I have two kids who are old enough and competent enough to stay HOME ALONE TOGETHER on a day when they have no school and Cook and I have to work. They did this for the first time on Wednesday, and it was uneventful. They fought some, were bored some, went out together to the local coffee shop to purchase hot chocolate, and they decorated for Thanksgiving. 

We had a wonderful holiday, as it turned out. I decided last weekend that I'd like to actually do Thanksgiving food this year instead of burritos (I love burritos, but I love stuffing, too), and everybody got on board. We had stuffing and mashed potatoes (I ran the starch department) and brussels sprouts (Cook ran the vitamins department) and lemon bars (Skipper ran the dessert department with Cook's help) and apple pie (Duchess ran the other dessert department with Cook's help). I think that between those menu items we ate a few sticks of butter apiece. We didn't bother with the cleaning or decorating other than the girls' festooning, and didn't stand much on ceremony with the meal, but we had a really good holiday. It rained torrentially all day. We draped ourselves around the house and played games and watched a movie and bickered and digested and just goofed around. Lovely. I hope you all had lovely holidays of your own, in your own style!