Happy Tomorrow!

Did your Thanksgiving table ever look like this??

Thanksgiving is nearly over, Thanks Be to God!  Although it is just a stop-gap in the days between Halloween and Christmas, Thanksgiving should be a time of family.

Memories of a frantic kitchen with Moms, Grandmas, and teenage females are made alive by the scents of current day Thanksgiving meals.  Hours and hours from the day before until the table is laden with the delightful turkeys, stuffing/dressing, gravy, mashed/creamed potatoes….so much thought, love, and hard work went into presenting a massive meal.

Memories then were fond and delicious.  Now?  Instead of carefully preparing pies to show pie-making prowess, CostCo and WalMart provide the ready-made varieties.  Let’s be honest here:  their pies are cheaper, labor free (for the consumers), and in some cases, better than the pies cooling on the counters.

Lift a glass to toast the maker of the feast!  With modern providence, family can sit down in the family room and actually enjoy each other.  With aluminum pans, plastic utensils, and heavy duty paper plates, even the clean-up allows for time to laugh, play games, or karaoke with off key singers.

Happy Thanksgiving!  

Sunshine caves!

Sunshine caves:  I can borrow “The Backyardigans” DVD!  (refer to 22 March 2011 post)

It wasn’t an easy sell. 

I picked her up from preschool and took her on an errand to WalMart, where I bought her lunch at McDonald’s: a McNuggets Happy Meal, which is the most expensive of the H/M deals.  Then we cruised through the little girl clothing and she selected some ‘Dora-the-Explorer’ undies, and new socks.  We meandered through the DVD section, where a new episode of “Angelina Ballerina” was down to $10, so she held onto it with white-knuckles. 

I never knew this about Sunshine, but she is a pretty smooth negotiator.  Oh, to look at her, one would think she is all fairy dust, sparkly sweetness, and a gentle spirit.  But, Sunshine is not like that, at least, not all the time.  She can be ruthless.

I sailed by the toy section like an ice cube on a hot slope.  Still, Sunshine flagged me down.  Slow-down-there-Grandma-how-much-is-that-doll?  Kept walking and said something about $20-and-that-is-really-expensive.

Getting through check-out, with all the candy bar traps that lay waiting, took all the teaching experience I possess in the area of re-directing students.  Fortunately, Sunshine was seated inside the cage/cart, with my diet Coke, and holding onto the DVD.  With both hands engaged, and with the sales clerk joking with her, I didn’t have to bite the candy bar bullet.

With “The Backyardigans” in my hands while my husband drove me home, I thought, ‘HAH!  Gotcha, didn’t I, Sunshine!’  But, of course, that isn’t the case.