Thanksgiving Feast and Black Friday at Home Depot

This is a very full week. But I suspect that before it’s over, today is going to seem like the calm before the storm. And speaking of storms, I am sitting in my office looking out on a rare sight this week. The rising sunlight is beautiful on those giant fir trees to my west. It has been raining buckets ever since Sunday and very dark. Tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day is supposed to be the nicest day of the week. But for now, the morning sun is beautiful.

As I said, my week is full. I got grocery shopping done for Thanksgiving around 10:00 p.m. Monday. Last night Carol and I did quite a bit of prep for that meal. And lest you miss where I’m going, all this chit-chat is not without reward. I am going to entice you with tomorrow’s creation by a woodworker…one of a different sort. Here’s tomorrow’s menu.

• Roast turkey with wild mushroom, leek, and filbert stuffing

• Mashed potatoes and gravy

• Green bean casserole

• Carol’s Killer Layered Jell-O salad

• Peas and pearl onions

• Crescent Rolls

• Cranberry sauce – jellied and whole

• A relish tray with assorted pickles and olives

• A white wine called White Crane by Confluence Vineyards of Vancouver, WA

• A red wine (Carol’s favorite) Shiraz by Australia’s Yellow Tail Wines

• Two kinds of homemade pumpkin pie with whipped cream

If you hurry, you can still get a spot at the table.

Then too, everybody knows that as soon as we get the dinner table cleared, Christmas is upon us. This year the news is that there are going to be more stores that intend to scoop the Black Friday events and will be conducting sales on Thanksgiving Day.

I must admit that my preference has always been that Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day as well as Easter Sunday are holy times. Our family has always set those days apart as high feast days. There are a lot of wonderful family memories that we have been made on those days in years past. Many of them have a food focus so the menu above is not at all unusual for one of our family gatherings.

This year, however, we find that we will have a quieter Thanksgiving. Our kids are grown up and off on their own. My daughter Erica is married and this will be little Clair’s second Thanksgiving. There’s more than one table for them to sit at. They spend the day table hopping. Eryn will probably be with them as Thanksgiving Break is observed from O.S.U. But I’m sure the annual “Civil War” will call Eryn back to Corvallis for Saturday’s game!