Category — Thanksgiving

And by “holiday,” I don’t mean Christmas. I mean the next important holiday coming up: Thanksgiving.

Last year I posted about our Thankful Tree. We love the Thankful Tree. For years, it’s been a humble little construction paper-twig tree, like the original idea from Family Fun.

But this year, with that heavy snowfall, we had several branches just lounging all over our front yard. I couldn’t resist an upgrade. And then the twig was so pretty that it seemed a shame to hang those cut-out construction paper leaves, and I remembered that I have one of those fake-leaf garlands. Because while I am not generally a shopper, I am a sucker for a craft store seasonal bargain bin. Voila:

At Thanksgiving we conducted an experiment.  Apparently Great Grandma B used to present the turkey on a platter with flaming sugar cubes.  She’d put cubes on slices of orange, then soak the cubes with lemon extract and light it On Fire!

J, who is a 6-year-old Martha Stewart, envisioned a turkey surrounded by vegetables. She’d specifically mentioned tomatoes, so Grandma provided them. I don’t think that it quite lived up to J’s vision, but in 18 or 20 years, she can start hosting Thanksgiving herself, right? M, meanwhile, was hiding away in a desperate attempt to a) find serenity time from her cousins who would like her to entertain them constantly and b) avoid the open flame: I tell you Fire Safety Month every year has deeply affected her.

The flames weren’t huge (you can see a bit on the right, above). Apparently almond extract doesn’t work quite so well? In any case, apparently in Days of Yore people would eat the melty sugar-cubed orange slices, but everyone was too distracted by the stuffing to remember to try it tonight.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! We have so many reasons to be grateful. And I’m thankful to you for visiting the blog.

Look at this amazingly crafty display someone put up in my kids’ school.  Seriously adorable, right?  I have a thing for felt, I tell ya.

Oh!  And pilgrims, too!

We had a conference with J’s kindergarten teacher today.  Also met with a mortgage guy about refinancing.  Plus two separate non-illness-related vomiting  episodes.  Went shopping for winter boots with M, and she badgered me about the utter lack of Santa Claus until I couldn’t even coyly chirp about how girls who don’t believe don’t get presents anymore.  I just had to throw in the towel, and then she started crowing about the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny and I was like, can we please just stop talking about this?  At dance class, J got confused and ended up sobbing.  Oh, and at dinner I gave J the Heimlich Maneuver because she was choking on her own phlegm and, for whatever reason, chose not to answer me when I repeatedly asked, in an increasingly frantic tone, “Can you breathe!?!”  Turns out that she was fine, but it didn’t prevent us from bursting into tears in a little puddle on the dining room floor.  Rather a stressful day, and I still haven’t started the holiday list, or even the things-to-do-before-we-leave-on-vacation list.  And because I’m an idiot, I have a vet check up appointment for Isis first thing in the morning.

I’m going to work on thinking of something perky and cheerful to share with you tomorrow, but if anyone has any suggestions, you know where to email me.

Ever thought about taking the kids to the Thanksgiving Day Parade?  We did it last year and had tons of fun.  I know it’s a bit intimidating, but Cute W and I firmly believe it’s one of those things everyone should do once, and we figured that we’d get it in while the kids were still young enough to be completely dazzled.  If you’ve considered it but wish you had an Action Plan, I’ll tell you what we did.

The parade begins at 9 am on Thanksgiving, and we knew that we’d need to arrive early in order to get a spot along the route, so we drove down to the NYC area the day before and planned to spend Wednesday doing something kid-friendly.

Now, we’re too cheap to spend the big bucks on a Manhattan hotel, and we wanted it to be just-our-family rather than a visit to friends, so we Pricelined a hotel in Fort Lee, NJ.  This is directly across the George Washington Bridge from the Upper West Side of Manhattan.  From the hotel, it was easy to drive over the bridge and park along the red subway line.  You know that I hate driving, and city driving scares me.  But this is relatively easy and low-stress.  We parked near Broadway & 116th Street because we used to live there and know the area well.

On Wednesday, we lucked out.  After going out to lunch, we just happened to choose the American Museum of Natural History because it was a kid-friendly destination.  We were there in the afternoon, and it was not too busy, probably because many people were traveling to relatives and such.  We went to the upstairs cafe, and this was our view:

Ummm, duh!  We completely didn’t put it together that this is where they blow up the floats!  Amazingly, the place wasn’t mobbed, and we were able to get window seats.

We ended up eating close to the hotel and the girls took a little dip in the pool, but it was an early bedtime because we woke up at 5:30 am to head into the city.  We parked on the street again and took the subway and then walked over to Central Park West.  It was surprisingly crowded already. In retrospect, I’d recommend that you plan to arrive at the parade site by 6 am at the latest to secure a spot.  We were bitter because in the past, the wall along the park had been a great place to sit and spectate, but these days the park side of the street is blocked off for bleachers for VIPs.  Or not VIPs, exactly, but PWAMITU (People Who Are More Important Than Us).  We managed to score a little indentation in front of a dentist’s office.  Still, it got a bit squishy.

Reading a story, I was both surprisingly cozy and surprisingly close to strangers' buttocks.

Here are my suggestions for the camp-out-and-parade-viewing process:

1. Limit the kids’ fluid intake.
2. Bring a blanket, camp chair, or something that will mark your territory and allow you to avoid sitting on cold pavement.
3. Bring books.
4. Wear clothing layers.  You could get cold, but you also don’t want to be bogged down holding too much.
5. Bring snacks, but not snacks that will make the kids too thirsty (see 1).
6. Identify a store or restaurant that has a bathroom before you find your spot, and then walk over to Central Park West staying close to the cross street with a bathroom.
7. Don’t forget your camera, perhaps binoculars if you’d like to recognize specific celebrities.  In fact, if I did it again, I might check the website for a last-minute list of celebrities so that I could appreciate it and share the information with my parade neighbors.
8. Try to have more adults than children present.  Because they will be spending time on your shoulders.  Which can be exhausting.
9. Make sure that the grown-ups have charged cell phones in case you get separated.

As you may have guessed, I was stressed out about the whole bathroom issue.  We did have to take a bathroom break, and I brought the girls while Cute W maintained our territory.  I feared grumbling and hostility, but it was absolutely fine.  It’s a family event, you know.  Some people muttered that we were crazy to leave, but I just kept smiling and saying “Excuse me” nicely.  When we actually worked our way back to our place, we followed our original path as much as possible, so folks knew that we had a spot further in.  Some even congratulated us on successfully visiting the bathroom.

The blond head in the foreground is M.

Of course, when you’re watching from the Upper West Side, the parade itself is finished long before the live tv version, which is filming at 34th Street.  See the parade route here for details.  We were on our way out by 10 or 10:30 am.  The farther downtown you go, the slower the parade will pass by.  Since our destination was Thanksgiving dinner in New Jersey at about 3 or 4 pm, the timing was excellent.

It’s a hassle, I agree, but it was well worth it.  You’re making memories, people!

We’re having relatives over for a birthday celebration, and J, who was confused about exactly what we’re celebrating, spent quite a bit of time making a lovely turkey garland for the occasion.  The prospect of getting together has put me into the holiday spirit early, so I thought that I’d share my first holiday recipe.

Thanksgiving kicks off what I like to call Cheeseball Season.  This most wonderful time of the year continues until New Year’s Day.  It’s necessary to impose a strict parameters on the consumption of cheeseball because otherwise I would probably be about 4 sizes larger.  Of course, it also makes this time of year even more special.

Ingredients:

• 2 packages of cream cheese (8 oz. each–1/3 less fat is fine, fat-free is not as good)
• 10 oz. sharp cheddar cheese, grated (I like Cabot Extra Sharp)
• 2 T finely chopped green pepper
• 2 T finely chopped pimiento (roasted red pepper)
• 2 T finely chopped yellow onion
• 2/3 cup finely chopped pecans
• 2-3 t Worchestershire sauce
• 2-3 dashes Tabasco sauce
• 2-3 t lemon juice
• 3-4 shakes  of garlic powder
• dash of salt
• ¾ cups chopped pecan (approximately; to roll the cheeseball in)

Directions:

• Let cream cheese soften to room temperature.
• Mix both cheeses.
• Mix in all the other ingredients (except second batch of pecans) and blend well.  It’s much easier to combine everything with your hands than with spoons.
• Form into two balls and place them in rounded bowls.
• Chill in the refrigerator for about an hour (more time is okay).
• Remove, fix the shape, and roll each ball in chopped pecans.

I like to eat my cheeseball with stoned wheat thin crackers or plain crusty bread.  Anything too complicated will detract from the carnival of flavors that are already cavorting blissfully together.  Cheeseballs keep pretty well in the fridge, so it’s a good recipe if you have two close-together parties, although, of course, it’s a Festival of Allergens, so it depends on your crowd.  Once refrigerated it firms up quite a bit, but one of those little spready utensils is still your best bet for serving.  Yummy.

I mentioned the other day that J was gathering up Halloween decorations, and that’s partly because she was excited to start our Thankful Tree.  We got the idea from Family Fun, and it’s a simple, cheap craft that’s become an annual tradition.

Basically, you take a tree branch (ours has been re-used a couple of times & it’s gotten a little too small, so we need to scavenge for a new one–this one’s a little dwarfed by its leaves) and stick it in a pot full of stones or dried rice or beans (I covered the rice with leftover moss from our fairy gardens).  Then the kids–or grown-ups, too–write something that they are thankful for on a construction-paper leaf and hang it on the tree.  I just leave extra blank leaves nearby so that the girls can add items as they become inspired.

At the end of the Thanksgiving season, I put all of the leaves into an envelope labeled with the year, so it’s a nice little time capsule, showing how the girls’ writing  evolves and what was important to them at that point in time.   This year, M made a big fuss about her first leaf and then labeled it “TV”, and I swear that she did it just to irritate me.  Honestly, I fear adolescence with that child.  Occasionally I try to be optimistic and hope that she’ll be tired of scorn and rebellion by the time she’s a teen, but I know that I’m kidding myself.

Take one guess about J’s first leaf.

No, really:  I’m serious.  If you read regularly, take a guess.

Now, first I have to explain that J started to write for herself, but she became frustrated and asked me to take dictation.  I wrote her exact words.

Ready?

I mentioned this to J’s kindergarten teacher, and the teacher knew the fish by name.