An Uneventful Black Friday

I love weekends. I adore weekends associated with a holiday.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday by far. It is simple. Very little unnecessary spending. It focuses on good food and family. Why don't we eat stuffing, candied yams and cranberry sauce the rest of the year?

I love the family time. Everyone gathers in the kitchen surrounded by wonderful aromas and spoons to lick, while the cook sweats over a hot stove.

Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, I stood in the kitchen all day long with the radio on and baked. I made about 10 cups of fresh butter from a gallon of heavy whipping cream. Click on this good site to see how I make my own butter. I also used the 2 quarts of buttermilk that was left over, to make a double batch of 6-Week Bran Muffins. Then I made mashed candied yams and rice stuffing. I made 2 jello salads and by the time the day was over, I fell into bed in a heap.

This is a holiday jello salad made with orange jello: 2 cups boiling water, to dissolve the jello, then 2 cans mandarin oranges and then 2 more cups of 7-up (or the cheapy brand) instead of water. I put marshmallows on top. I love the tang the 7-up or Sprite gives jello!

I woke up Thanksgiving morning at 8 a.m. I went into the kitchen and found Victor cooking. He had 2 pecan pies baking, 2 pumpkin pies ready to go into the oven, dinner rolls were rising, and he was stuffing the bird. He is marvelous. We had a beautiful, intimate, Thanksgiving dinner with our children.

Friday morning, Victor got me up at 4 a.m., we left the house at 4:30, drove over the mountain pass to the next town and arrived at WalMart at 5 a.m. I experienced Black Friday for the first time in my life! Our small-town WalMart had a very controlled, polite crowd and no one trampled anyone else.

It was pretty comical. Victor was equipped with a map of where all the wild sales were scattered around the store and we gathered up what we had carefully put on our list. I can't tell what we purchased because our kids are the sneakiest on the planet and would read this and it would ruin the surprise.

My sister called me later that day and told me she knew what I was doing at 5 a.m.! The local news caught Victor and I entering WalMart. Brother!