Holidays

 I celebrated my first turkey-less Thanksgiving this year. Although I've been a vegetarian for more than two decades, I understand that Thanksgiving, for most people means turkey. But this year there were seven of us: four vegetarians, and three agnostic meat eaters, who were indifferent on the subject of meat. Let me tell you that you can still pack plenty of calories in a meatless meal. The plate below demonstrates, with two types of alcohol, garlic bread, macaroni and cheese, palak paneer, mashed cassava root, and lentil loaf.

     Thanksgiving is the only day of the year that I miss not owning a television, because I love watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. The parade coverage doesn't stream online, and once again I missed it, in spite of my best efforts. Of the three friends I asked, not a single once could help me out - one doesn't own a television, and the other two use Netflix but have no standard broadcast TV access. I suppose this is a sign of the modern era.
     Because my guests can't watch television at my house, I need to offer other forms of entertainment. Of course, there's always the old standby, "Pet the dog and cat continuously." When that grew tiring, we played cards and cut out snowflakes. Yes, paper snowflakes like you used to make when you were a kid. I've used them before in my decorating, but this is the largest house I've lived in and thus I needed close to a hundred. Yesterday, it took three of us an hour just to hang them, but now the house is a winter wonderland.