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Thanksgiving and Christmas in my family is a small affair. There aren’t many of us in the area. I enjoy entertaining but am used to having between three and five courses for 18 to 30 people. So a family get together is small compared to what I’m used to. Then again, it’s family.

I asked my mother to bring cheese and crackers and she asked not to as she didn’t want people to fill up ahead of time. Ok. She provided cranberry sauce and my brother and his wife brought potatoes.

I arrived about 90 minutes before the target plating time and set to work. Much of it was simply waiting as two dishes needed to finished in the oven, one had to be brought to temperature in a water bath, and two needed to chill. Everyone asked if there was anything they could do to help. Everything went out within about five minutes of one another and I was pleased. Normally my timing isn’t quite so tight.

The first course was the noodle salad which my dad eyed suspiciously. He may not encounter eggplant and mango often nor does he probably like toasted sesame seed. He had a forkful, noted that it wasn’t for him, and went on to the other courses. My heart sank a little but in short order the bread was demolished followed by a healthy portions of everything else.

At the end of the meal my uncle looked at me and said “I’ve never eaten so much”. This wasn’t a casual observation so much as I felt like he was sharing a secret. My brother commented “the food was all good”. There’s two ways to take this phrase, indicating that each food item were good or that the food was sufficient. If the former, that marks the first time my brother has ever complimented my food. Unlike after most holidays, my uncle, father, mother, and brother each volunteered to take something home with them. I hadn’t seen this before.

This wasn’t the first family holiday meal I’d done but it was the first to receive such a positive response. My mother once commented “I can see how people like your baking but it doesn’t really do much for me”. My dad has commented on how entrees “weren’t dry enough for my me”. I don’t know if this marks some progress in my cooking abilities or something else. This was my nephew’s second Thanksgiving, but the first where he had the same food as us. I think that somehow made things tastier.

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I’m not a big fan of Presidents’ Day.  I recognize it as a compromise for giving kids off twice, once for Washington and once for Lincoln but the idea of lumping the 44 of them together is unappetizing.  On top of this, a day to celebrate the office of the president absolutely smacks of royalty.  Our government purports to be meritocratic and democratic and not all holders of the office deserve recognition.  Jefferson and Buchanan occupied the same office but are not in the same league.  I was airing my grievances against the holiday as a friend of a tenant listened politely:

Her:  Presidents’ Day to me mean I get to make my mom’s American Flag cake in winter rather than waiting for the 4th. *Shows cake carrier* We’re having it with dinner.

Suddenly I’m largely ok with Presidents’ Day.

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Work held a holiday part today which is the first to which I’ve been invited in the last six years.  Turns out the giant tent against which I railed as the emblem of anti-snow was for this gathering.  The setup tables each represented the food of a different culture and had three dishes served by an awkward team of a kitchen staffer and an executive.  The plates were about six inches across and the serving sizes were “fun sized” a la the diminutive candy bars dispensed during Halloween requiring six or seven individual trips to create something along the size of an appetizer.  There were two exceptions: The shrimp, which were the size of a man’s fist, and the desserts, which included cupcakes the size of a baby’s head.  I’m pretty sure that the bread pudding was served in shot glasses which was convenient as one doesn’t have enough hands to hold both a beverage and any sort of foodstuff.  Each station held the highlight of world gastronomy: fried starch, which is always appreciated.

I don’t know if the coordinator planned this but the best food was dished out by the most intimidating executive.  The #1 at the company guarded the shrimp, and the #2 monitored consumption of the prepared egg rolls.  This also synced somewhat with the ethnicity of the executive.  I’ll have to see how this tracks from year to year.

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My father and I eat very well on long weekends as I have time to prepare proper meals.  I made a Santa Fe stew which takes about 10 hours to prepare, most of which is stewing, and left it in the crock pot for a self-serve dinner.  I ate before my dad and came down to see him feeding a portion of his stew to the dog.

Me: Problem with the stew?
Dad: No, I just thought Max would enjoy the black beans more than I would.
Me: Traitor, I spent my youth dodging my mortal enemy, green beans forced upon me by my mother and here I see you feeding beans to the dog.  Turncoat!
Dad: No, it was your mother, and I hated her beans too, but before you were born she switched from green beans to black beans if I complained.  I was exchanging one thing I hated for another.
Me: Touche.  If we go over mom’s for Christmas and she prepares beans and you say anything about me not eating them you’re going to have six months of black beans when I get fired.
Dad: Deal.

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I didn’t go to bed Thursday evening so I could get my one Black Friday item: a 10.1″ netbook OfficeMax was selling for $179.99 which is about $130 off.   I arrived at the store at 6 AM, saw they didn’t open until 7 and went home to prepare a sprawling breakfast and returned at quarter of 7.  There were about 20 housewives, retirees, and work-at-homers tooling around outside in an orderly line and with store circulars in hand.  A few minutes before the doors opened a store attendant wearing dark glasses carrying a clip board walked out and recited the following:

May I have your attention please.  The doors will open in four minutes and at that time you will enter the store in an orderly fashion.  Some items are available in limited quantities and these have been marked with a short stack of red tags.  Without shoving, take one tag to the service counter to retrieve your item.  There are store attendants stationed throughout the facility as monitors.  Please be civil.

The doors opened and the anticipated collapse of Western civilization did not occur but roughly 1/2 of us made a bee line to the computers so we could be told that the circular containing the netbook was faked.  One woman asked “how do you fake a circular?” to which a bleary-eye’d attendant responded “It’s just a mystery”.

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Normally, there’s a few people at work in dumb Halloween costumes.  Today, I saw none.  There was recently a wave of firings.  I wonder if I discovered their decision criterion.  I approve.

As a Haiku:
No costumes at work/
Wave of wrath may be the cause/
I approve of this.

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I don’t recall everyone at work having previously taken off on Good Friday. But today, everyone was out. Everyone (hyperbole). I checked a few calendars and all listed “good Friday” as the reason to take off. I thought maybe my coworkers were more religious than I thought until I started pawing around. I got suspicious when both someone with the last name “Suberamanian” and “Steinberg” had taken off with reason of “Good Friday”. Either people or lying or the draw of the good word is far greater than I imagined.

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I enjoy the onslaught of emails, calls and Facebook messages I receive around the holidays from former high school associates.  Their saccharine sentiment that makes them feel like they’re doing missionary work from the Church of Cool that usually goes something like “hey gang!  It’s your arrogant friend who left for the big city.  I’m going to be inyour backwater hovel for a week and want to give you the honor of  hearing me wax idiotic about how worldly I am now.”

Normally my response ranges from silence to “I hope you die of amoebic dysentery in a ditch” but Joe Naylor has provided another option: “Isn’t my face red. I’ve been so busy being useful to society and accomplishing things like not being a douch that I forgot you existed.” I think I may try this take as a New Year’s resolution. What tactics do you use?