Thankful

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday! I think it's great that we have a national holiday devoted to gratitude, and it seems oddly patriotic that on a random Thursday, a majority of Americans will be eating the same meal.

On Tuesday, work did a Thanksgiving potluck. I wore an ultrafestive Thanksgiving turtleneck I bought online this month.

After work, I headed straight to my grandparents', because they were taking me to see a local production of Holiday Inn. The original Holiday Inn is a 1942 Bing Crosby/Fred Astaire flick about a hotel that is only open on holidays, with each holiday having its own musical numbers. (I watched it in January 2014.) This is often listed as a Christmas movie, but it's not. If it's attached to any holiday, I would say it's more of a New Year's movie. But it's really about all the holidays, and therefore it's about none of them.

 Anyway, the calendrical nature of the story and music is, of course, something that I love, even though I don't love the story itself. As my grandma pointed out, it's really just fluff, like a 1940s musical would be. For the stage version, they scrapped the racist Lincoln's Birthday song and the peculiar Washington's Birthday song and added other Irving Berlin songs. It was a fine production.

In the movie, they do a blackface number for a song about Lincoln ending slavery. It's very uncomfortable and inappropriate for modern audiences, using terms like "darkie." But I don't think they were meaning to be racist when they made it; in fact, they probably thought they were being antiracist. It's just not appropriate today.

That's how I feel about "Baby It's Cold Outside." I don't think they meant it to be rapey or predatorial when they made it. But that doesn't mean it's appropriate for modern audiences. I'm glad that the early-2010s obsession with the song has gone away. It's not even about Christmas! John Legend and Kelly Clarkson recorded an "updated" version this year. I'm all for updating the problematic lines, but their update was not much better than the original, especially since they still included the line about "a cigarette more." Anyone with any sense knows cigarettes are terrible for you!

Anyway, after all those tangents, I'm back to describing my week.

I got to work from home on Wednesday, which was good. My mom went to pick up my first cousins once removed, Anna and Adam, who are from Iowa but who are at BYU. They stayed with us Wednesday and Thursday night for the holiday.

Wednesday evening, my mom was baking pies, and I made two pies myself. Well, I just made the filling and my mom made the crust. But I made a sweet potato pie, the first time I had ever had one, and mincemeat pie.

The sweet potato pie was very similar to pumpkin pie.

 I added too much beef to the mincemeat pie, but it was OK.

Then I went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night, which is a pretty common occurrence, and when I do, my brain starts worrying about how old I am. Yesterday (November 30) was my ten-year anniversary of coming home from my mission, and I'm aging out of the YSA ward. Since I was already awake, I decided to do my gospel study of the day, which was President Monson's talk "The Divine Gift of Gratitude." The positive words of the talk were exactly what I needed to hear at 4 a.m., and I fell asleep counting my blessings.

When I woke up for real on Thanksgiving, it had snowed quite a bit. There would be no 10k (like I did last year) or twelve-mile trail run (like I did the year before). My dad had cleared most of the snow, but I cleared more of it for my cardio that day.

Then my mom's family came over for the holiday, since we have the most spacious house. It was an enjoyable day, but I ate too much pie (I had all five kinds—the two I made and then pumpkin, apple, and pecan). I cleaned up the kitchen while listening to my Thanksgiving playlist, which now has 104 songs.

On Black Friday, we didn't do any shopping at all. My family made some potato candy, which is supposedly a family tradition, but I haven't done it since I was seven, so it's not much of a tradition. It literally consists of a little bit of potato, a lot of powdered sugar, and flavoring and coloring.

I made the orange (pumpkin pie) and the brown in the upper left (chocolate mint).

 We took Adam and Anna back to Provo, and I went along for the ride. I don't feel like I'm that old, but I was surprised at all the bus lanes that were put in since I was a student. It started snowing pretty bad, so the drive home was very slow.

Once we were home, I took down the Thanksgiving decorations and brought out the Christmas decorations, all while listening to my Christmas playlist, which is currently at 1,375 songs. The day after Thanksgiving has always been special to me as the day to begin Christmas. When you do Christmas before Thanksgiving, you miss out on that specialness!

I just adore Jimmy, even as he interrupts me when I'm blogging.

 I didn't work at all on Friday, because doing so would have created some HR scheduling problems. But that meant I had to work all day Saturday. Now is the time I don't like my job that much, because it sucks away my free time. Since I was working all day, I didn't move much; I only got 1,300 steps, and my body craves movement. Jimmy slept next to me most of the day.

But I have a testimony of commandments, including the Sabbath. I don't know if my sanity could handle working today after working yesterday; it's so nice to have a day of rest.

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It's the last installment of pumpkinundation roundup!

I've had Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Steamers before, but for some reason I liked it more this time than usual. It seemed more flavorful, and maybe I appreciated it because it was a cold day? 7/10.

I also enjoyed the Starbucks Pumpkin Loaf. 8/10.

I don't think the Starbucks employees entirely knew what they were doing, because they told me they burned my Starbucks Turkey and Stuffing Panini, but I wasn't going to wait for them to make me another. It was very crispy. Starbucks sandwiches are never very good, but I appreciate the seasonal nature. 7/10.

Tuesday night I had an unfrosted version of the Cutler's Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie, which wasn't as good as the frosted version. 7/10.

Dreyer's has had plain pumpkin ice cream since before pumpkin was a big deal, but this was my first time having Dreyer's Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream, which also had pie pieces. It was a nice ice cream. 8/10.

Red Button Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake Ice Cream almost has an apple flavor to it. It's good ice cream but not very pumpkiny. 7/10.

My mom brought home her leftover Cafe Zupas Turkey Cranberry & Brie Panini, which I heated up in the microwave. I can't fairly judge it, because I was already full and it was reheated, but it was an enjoyable sandwich. But I think I would have preferred it without the bacon. 7/10.

I used McCormick Pumpkin Pie Spice Spice [sic] Blend Extract in potato candy. It reminds me of the artificial flavoring used in many "pumpkin spice" products. 6/10.

Oh look, Trader Joe's Pumpkin Pie Spice is photobombing!

 In Provo, we went to the Creamery on 9th, and I had a Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream Hot Chocolate Float. The ice cream had a nice spice flavor with crust pieces; as it melted in the hot chocolate, it imparted its wonderful flavor. 8/10.

See you back here in September! I'm looking forward to trying more pumpkin items then.