Thanksgiving

Wow, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. My favorite holiday. I like it because it's not a commercialized carnival like Christmas, Halloween, and even Easter. And Valentine's Day. (What's up with Valentine's Day? Why is that even a thing?)

It's just cooking and eating. And traveling. All other aspects of Thanksgiving are optional.

AwesomeCloud will be spending a delightful day with his cousins, at Auntie and Uncle's house two towns over. Hardly any traveling, yay! I'll be making a green bean casserole and a ricotta pie. Because on the Day of Gluttony, green vegetables should be swimming in gooey crunchy calorie-laden stuff, and having just one pie is unthinkable. There should be five or six pies. Four minimum.

I come from an Italian family, and our family feast keyword is "variety." Also, "quantity." Additionally, "longevity." My family is famous for its day-long holiday celebrations. Brother- and sister-in-law enjoy going all out for festivities, too, so even though the feast won't last six whole hours, I'm sure I won't be disappointed. (Once I participated in a Southern Thanksgiving in NC. We cooked all morning, sat down to eat, and in an hour it was over. And that was including the one lone pumpkin pie. My host was confused - "Aren't you full? One pie fed everyone, right?" - but after a lifetime of partying it up with variety, quantity, longevity, and ridiculous piles of leftovers, I couldn't adjust to the low-key version of what was basically, to me, an ordinary Sunday dinner. And without even any eggplant parmigiana.)

But just for insurance, I gotta bring just that one extra pie.

Besides, ricotta pie is easy peasy. And the kid and cousins should be given the chance to warm up to it, because it's a traditional part of my family's feast, and I'm family to them now too.

(If you're wondering why we don't go to my family's house for Thanksgiving if it's so wonderful, don't worry. My family gets Easter, which is essentially the same but with ham. I'm not into having photos with the Easter Bunny, but I love the fact that my family's feast is a feast for all occasions. Who would want to do Thanksgiving only once a year?)