All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray

I just love Thanksgiving. I love its laid-back atmosphere, its earthy colors, its romanticized images of Pilgrims. I just love relaxing at home on Thanksgiving after eating tons and tons of food. It's so peaceful.

So I don't love that we have a new tradition of going to visit my brother's family at Thanksgiving. This was our third year in a row. We went at Christmas in 2012 and 2013, and truth be told, I would rather visit at Thanksgiving than at Christmas. But it takes the fun out of Thanksgiving.

Now, please don't misunderstand. I love visiting my nephews. They're adorable and hilarious. Franklin, the eight-year-old, is shy and quiet, but he can be really silly around us, calling me "Grunkle Uncle Mark." I asked Nathaniel, the six-year-old, his favorite season. He said it was summer, because they get to come to our house and play video games for an hour a day.

It's just that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and I don't get any traditional Thanksgiving feel when we go. My brother's family eschews American traditions. Preston, the twelve-year-old, told me he doesn't care about Thanksgiving. (He later said he liked it because they could go do Pokemon Go without people in the parking lot.) We have to go out to eat for Thanksgiving dinner. That's less work, but you don't get the ambience, and you don't get any leftovers. Thanksgiving at their house doesn't feel any different from any other day there.

(I got a few Thanksgiving greetings on Thanksgiving, and I didn't want to forget to reply, but I had other things on my mind, so I didn't send well-thought-out replies. So don't think I was just brushing you off, if that's you.)

The day before Thanksgiving, we drove all day until we got there. We stopped at my cousin Krishelle's house in Reno, and her five-year-old son loved having someone new to talk to, and he showed us all of their family pictures. I don't think he even knows who we are.

Sometimes, you just have to wear socks of pugs wearing turkey hats.

We drove up to a Hometown Buffet for dinner. I've been counting calories since July, and I've been waiting for Thanksgiving to deliberately go over my calorie budget. The only other day I've gone over was my birthday. (If I had run ten miles on Thanksgiving, as I did last week, I still wouldn't have exceeded my calories.)

After we had dinner, we went to a dog park across the bay from San Francisco. The sunset was phenomenal. Nathaniel had fun jumping on rocks. He wanted to race me. I smoked him, but he said he won because he touched a bench first, even though we hadn't agreed that was where we were racing to.

On Black Friday, we went to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which was the fourth movie I've seen in theaters this year. It was shown in a 1930s-style theater. Usually I like to spend the day after Thanksgiving by pulling out Christmas decorations while listening to Christmas music, but that didn't happen this year.

We had planned to come back Sunday, but the forecast wasn't looking good, so we left on Saturday. We had two days of driving and two days of visiting, but that's better than one day of visiting. I've found that California and Utah have better rest stops than Nevada--I don't think Nevada has a good rest stop. I was also astounded at this terrible Nevada plaque, with the run-on sentence "A squaw tried to save a child but was chased for days was caught and the child killed." Maybe that's how they speak in the year 6008, when this was dedicated.

Now it's Christmastime. It truly is a magical time, but I don't quite understand why. We have lights and decorations, but we have those at other times of the year. We have pleasant music, which we basically don't have other times of the year, but why don't we? (Believe me, I collect music for all holidays, and most of it's not very good. And the only two popular songs I know of that were written for Thanksgiving, "Jingle Bells"* and "Over the River and through the Woods," were both stolen by Christmas! Robbing the poor to give to the rich! *Some historians question the Thanksgiving origins of "Jingle Bells.") We have candies and baked goods at Christmas, but we have those at other holidays too. And am I too optimistic to think that it's not even the presents that make it so pleasant? And if it weren't for Christmas, everyone would hate December.

I'm sorry. This has turned more cynical than I meant it to be. Hooray for Christmas!

***
I don't really know what to do with pumpkinundation roundup at this point. Apparently I was in the minority for not counting pumpkin pie as a Christmas dessert. But I still don't know what to do about other pumpkin things. I could continue the roundup and include mint, gingerbread, sugar cookie, hot chocolate, and other things (as I'm doing this week) if there's interest. But sometimes I worry this section distracts from the main content of my blog.

Also, I've been accepted as a reviewer for the junk food blog The Impulsive Buy, so I will start having things appear there occasionally, although not nearly as much as I would put here on this blog.

 My family often buys Costco muffins for early morning road trips, but muffins are basically cake, so I can never have them. But since these Costco pumpkin streusel muffins exist, I could have them this time. They were pretty good. 4/5.

 I love pecan pie, so this Hometown Buffet pecan pie was no different. 5/5.

 The Hometown Buffet pumpkin pie was a little spicier than most. 4.5/5.

 And lastly, the Hometown Buffet apple pie was all right. 4/5.

 My sister-in-law had these Trader Joe's Pumpkin Soup Crackers. The name is ambiguous: these are not soup crackers flavored like pumpkin, but crackers flavored like pumpkin soup. No, really. These are not sweet at all, and they tasted a lot like Chicken in a Biskit. These were a little strong for me, I don't know if it's the onion or what, but they would appeal to other people. 3/5.

 I went to See's Candies and turned down the first few chocolates they offered me. They asked what I liked, so when I said I liked Christmas candies, they brought me a See's mint chocolate truffle. From this one chocolate, I kept tasting mint all day. 5/5.

We went to Trader Joe's, and these Trader Joe's Pumpkin O's have the texture of Apple Jacks. These were much better than Apple Jacks. I don't know that it's a pumpkin flavor, but it's a good flavor. 4/5.

 These Trader Joe's Pumpkin Cranberry Crisps seem like dried pumpkin bread with dried cranberries. They're actually pretty good. I like the texture. 4/5.

 And then these Trader Joe's Mini Gingerbread Men are the most gingery gingerbread I've ever had. I had a few on Friday, and then my sister-in-law sent them with me on Saturday for the ride home. But my family ate them all on the trip and I didn't get any. :( 4.5/5.

I went to See's to get their See's Mint Cream Lollypops. After the pumpkin spice ones were a major disappointment, these are the best See's lollypops I've ever had. You know those little melty mint candies that look like chocolate chips? These taste like those. 5/5.