…that lasts throughout the year!

It’s getting closer to the Big Day, even as credit continues to dry up, jobs go away by the thousands, and ideas for alternative gift-giving are increasingly making the rounds. So today I’m going to promote an idea that will hopefully begin to catch on all over the country for Christmases present and future.

It’s called volunteering. Now, many families volunteer their services at Thanksgiving every year, preparing and serving T-day feasts to shut-ins via Meals On Wheels, at senior centers or at the city soup kitchen. Of course many others donate goods, like food and clothing, blankets and winter coats, etc. during the holidays. But not so much at Christmas, and I’ve always wondered why.

Sure, there’s not much call for volunteers at most charity operations on Christmas Day proper, but on most other days all year long there is a shortage of volunteers to do the work. Things like sorting and boxing donated food to be distributed to needy families and food banks, the preparation and serving of regular meals through all the agencies and charities that feed the hungry, manning the check-out at the church or secular thrift store, spending a few hours sitting with a disabled child or adult so their primary caregivers can have a much-needed time out, maintaining trails in parks and forests, even repairing and building homes with Habitat for Humanity. There are ongoing projects in most cities and counties all over the nation that would love nothing better than to have more volunteers than they need during day-to-day operations, at all times of year. I’ll include some source links at the bottom that should help readers in search of projects to volunteer for.

Even when there’s little money, the gift of self and time is worth a great deal. For Christmas gift-giving your family could produce some hand-made cards to exchange with each other, promising a certain amount of hours to a chosen charity, in the recipient’s name. For instance, a teenager could gift Grandma with 30 or 40 hours (or more) over the next year of volunteer work at her senior center, at her favorite nursing home, or at her church’s supported children’s home. A husband could gift a wife with X number of hours promised to help divvy up the food donations to the food bank, and deliveries for Meals on Wheels – in HER name.

All the gift-giver need do is choose a charity, find out when their need for volunteers is great (and coincides with when hours may be available), and request that the charity log the hours “in the name of” whoever the gift is given to. Most will readily accommodate this wish, and even include the in-name donations on their list included in the annual report.

There could be days when everyone in the family could be busily engaged in their chosen charities, arriving home to each other exhausted in the best and most satisfying of ways. Each appreciating anew – long after the holidays are over – the true value of the gifts. The giving of gifts is a display of selfless spirit (or, it’s supposed to be), so including needy strangers in the process just expands the selflessness. Plus, it does a lot of good for those many who are in need. But beware, volunteering can be addictive and lead to ever greater commitments of time and energy volunteered.

Links:

Volunteer USA Foundation
World Volunteer Web: Not just for Christmas
Volunteering your time this Christmas
Don’t wait till Christmas to volunteer
Food on Foot: Volunteers Wanted
VolunteerMatch: Find a Place

Three of my kids who will not be here for Thanksgiving have called in the past week to ask me what to do with the turkey carcass once everybody’s done eating the Big Dinner. So while there are about a million things you can do with the leftover chunks and slices of turkey meat (turkey sandwiches, turkey & gravy on a shingle, etc.), not that many young people these days know what to do with all those bones and the gelled goo and the fat and skin and stray bits of possible meat that may cling, other than to put the whole mess into a plastic garbage bag and toss it into the dumpster. Or bury it in the back yard. Heck, even the cats won’t clean it off well enough to bleach any bones, and you sure shouldn’t feed it to the dogs!

So here’s the basics to brew yourself up some good turkey broth from this leftover yuck, which in turn can be used to make future gravy, future soups (any kind), or just poured over the dry dog food and mixed to give Fido a feeling that s/he has a feasting holiday too. It’s not hard, you just need a stock pot (or canner) big enough to hold all the ’stuff’ scraped off the platter and roasting pan.

1. Scrape the carcass, loose bones and leavings off the platter and roasting pan into the pot. Add enough water barely cover.

2. If you’ve leftover crudités (carrot and celery sticks, roasted garlic cloves, etc.) put them in the water too. If you’re planning future soup broth, chunk up an onion and put it in with the rest, along with ~2 teaspoons of salt. Also add 2 bay leaves, some rubbed (or fresh sage), rosemary if you like it, and 1/4 teaspoon of white pepper.

3. Let ‘er boil, turning the bones occasionally, for at least an hour. Add water if necessary.

4. Lift out the bones and bits, package for disposal. Strain the broth into jars and refrigerate. Use within a month or so, for whatever dishes need gravy or broth. This can include collards/kale, hopping john and other dishes you’re likely to cook for the rest of the holidays, make a white gravy with some broth for breakfast biscuits. If you’re just planning to use the broth to flavor up dry dog and cat food, leave out the salt, pepper, herbs and onion, but do include the carrots and celery.

See how easy that is? Sure, it’s a project, but worth it not to waste anything from your big feast. And don’t forget as we move into flu season that Mom’s Turkey Soup is every bit as soothing and phlem-clearing (this is true, look it up!) as Mom’s Chicken Soup. In fact, every time we get a whole chicken around here I do the same thing, and use the broth for soup.

As the world financial situation looks to be bad and getting worse, there may not be much consumerist excess for Christmas this year. So the traditional feasting and other such food goodies are going to be even more appreciated than usual. My mother’s generation lived through the Great Depression by not wasting anything, and the better able our generations today are to do much the same things, the better we’ll survive intact. When you can’t just jump into the SUV and drive to the store for a single item, your best bet is to process your own items from what you’ve got, then USE them.

Turkey Broth and Other Leftover Turkey Recipes

It’s November already, the the world economic situation – or just the US economy – is dire. Many are wondering if there will be a Christmas at all this year, and that’s a shame. It means we’ve come to identify this wonderful holiday with the ugly consumer orgy it’s become over the years. Where credit cards get maxed out buying useless, cheap plastic junk or electronic gizmos that don’t last, and just about everything ends up in the landfill before next Christmas anyway.

So I’m going to advocate very strongly here for the kind of Christmas that whole families can enjoy together doing and making things that will surely become treasures to be cherished forever. Gift-giving really isn’t all about how much money you’ve got to waste, it’s about giving of one’s self and one’s thoughts and love and skills. Grandmothers are particularly adept at teaching these sort of things to the up and coming generation, and apart from some serious messes to clean up, these are wonderful projects for the holidays.

Our friends over at the blog Life on a Shoestring Budget have some very nifty ideas, a surprising number of them having to do with that ubiquitous dryer lint that mostly gets tossed these days. My favorites are dryer lint paper – for Christmas cards or handmade notebooks – dryer lint mache, and dryer lint clay. The recipes offered in links to Frugal Living and PlanetPal look to be easy and satisfying.

I really like the idea of handmade journals for budding writers and artists, kids can put so much of themselves into a project like this! My grandson learned to make leather bound journals in school, and cuts up old leather jackets and such from thrift shops and free bins to make patchwork covers. We’re just starting on the paper-making, which will probably go mostly for Christmas cards. I’ve plenty of scraps of material, lace, trim, sequins, beads, studs, jewels and buttons that can be glued on the paper to make winter or Christmas scenes. Just need good old Elmer’s and some scissors, your distant family and friends will keep these cards forever!

Check out the post at Shoestring Budget and get busy, time is slipping away! For great ideas, check out Casual Keystrokes, which has a fine list of cool journal and planner ideas. And don’t forget that the kids can also help Grandma with edible gifts. In a later post I’ll include some of my favorite cookie and candy recipes for just this purpose. If you are like me, you save all those Christmas cookie tins when the season’s over (mine are stored with the rest of the Christmas decorations). These can be filled with all sorts of yummy goodies that make great gifts. My extended family has grown so used to getting their Christmas cookie-candy assortment every year, I think they might riot if ever I were to miss a year!

The holiday season wasn’t invented to bolster free market Capitalism, you know. It’s a time for love and sharing and warmth between people. Children honestly need to know this, as the economy is very likely to be grim for the next few years, and people will be struggling hard just to survive. Teach your grandchildren how, and encourage them to enjoy. These are lessons they’ll carry forward through the rest of their lives, and will never be sorry to have learned.

Links:

Christmas in a Depressed Economy
Casual Keystrokes
‘Tis the Season: Gift Ideas
Making Paper from Dryer Lint
Lint Craft Recipes
Stuffed Toy Patterns

Here’s hoping that all my readers had a happy, safe and brightly-lit Independence Day this year! Ours was particularly great, with Grandson #2 (two months younger than #1), his Mom and soon-to-be official Stepdad and 15-year old sister we’ve only met once before. Other guests were at a minimum, which allowed us to just hang out together, tell stories and talk about ’stuff’, hike on the Mount Mitchell Trail a bit, and break in my brand new deck.

We hadn’t seen grandson Michael for four years, which is way too long! Last time he was here – for the 4th of July – he got bitten by a copperhead on day-1 and had to spend the next three days in the hospital. Not much of a birthday vacation! Luckily, copperheads have thus far been absent this year (knock on wood), so Mike and I were able to spend good time together picking blackberries and making cobbler, accumulating lots of thorn pricks and scratches in the process. We only looked slightly war-weary by the time the cobbler was done, badges of honor around here!

He’s grown into a fine young man (18 now). Very good-looking, with our son’s high forehead threatening to turn into Ben Franklin by the time he’s 30. Runs in the male side of my family strongly – Dad always grew one side long and brushed it over his bald pate, which is the silliest hairdo anybody ever invented! I figure Mike will brave it with a full Ben Franklin when the time comes. Or maybe imitate Grandpa, who shaves his head even though he does have more hair than anybody needs. He’s turned out sweet and thoughtful, bright and talented without our help, so I was sure to compliment Mom on her good job.

His father – our son – died when Mike was just two. It hasn’t been a very easy life for any of them, and I am once again very glad that for them things seem to have worked out well anyway. The teenagers built a lovely slip-n-slide down the garden out-terraces with plastic tarps and a hose, had a wonderful time getting themselves bruised as well as wet. They brought us some rain from Florida, which we desperately needed, then got to watch our neighbors’ big fireworks display on Saturday night from the geyser at the creek. Played several rounds of disc golf, had to pull Stepdad’s handicap early – he’s a natural!

Meanwhile, #1 grandson Jahsh who has always lived with us and has at least twice the hair anybody needs, has decided to do dreadlocks. Yet another Veteran of Foreign Hairdos, which, given his long, not-curly tresses, is a ‘do that doesn’t come easy (though he’ll look pretty darned cool). The photo up top is of him heading out for the prom in May as a pirate, nobody was surprised. His girlfriend did make a very lovely mermaid!

Jahsh and our daughter are heading to Florida later this month for an extended stay, he’ll start college in January instead of August. His father (whom we hadn’t seen in five years) did make it for graduation, and has offered him a job at his comic book/toy store. I figure it’ll do him good to learn how to work for a living, though I doubt he’s going to learn much other than how cool it is to be the boss’s son…

Which, when all is said and done, will leave my Chia-Hubby and I here all on our lonesome for our 39th anniversary in September. My sister and her husband will be moving into their log McMansion nearby next month, so we’ll have some family close by, maybe she and I will finally get down to planning that Materia Medica herbal book we’ve been planning for the last 40 years to write.

Hope that your summer is going as swimmingly as mine, that your grandchildren don’t drive you crazy, and that everyone goes forward to remember 2008 as one of the best years of their lives!

My beautiful little Sunshine seemed quite delighted to meet her Grandma (me!) over Memorial Day weekend, and Grandma was sure delighted to meet her! At just over two months old she’s fat and happy, quite mellow for a wee thing who doesn’t much like being so little. As long as she’s kept close and high enough to look big people in the eye, she’ll let loose that dazzling smile and tell stories for as long as we’ll listen to the coos and gurgles and guffaws.

My grandsons are pretty much grown (#1 just turned 18, #2 turns 18 in July), it’s a little hard to remember that they were ever that small. #1 was even smaller, just six and a half pounds when he made his appearance in the world. Miss Sunshine already understands in no uncertain terms that she is the Princess of the Universe, and fully expects deference from all to that lofty title. Which, of course, her parents, grandparents, aunts and cousins are all most eager to provide in abundance!

#1 grandson surprised me by walking out to the car when they arrived, taking the baby confidently from Mom, and proceeding with her to the house talking all the while about why he’s going to call her “CoolAss Mojo” no matter what anybody else says her name is, and imparting cousin-like advice on what the world is like and how truly cool it is. It reminded me of the fact that my husband and I were just 18 when our daughter was born, and I had to realize that it probably won’t be too long before I get to welcome a GREAT-grandchild into the family. Whoa!!!

I did manage to finish that quilt finally. It wasn’t as big as I’d have liked, so I batted it double-thick and used pink fleece on the back side to compliment the purple I used around the squares on the front (because I started it before I knew Sunshine was a she, and purple is what I had on hand). Daughter was very pleased, and that’s what counts.

With gas prices going up fast we may not see them again for awhile. We’d go north to see them, but must go west to visit Mom-in-Law this summer instead – if we can afford even that. She’ll be 86 in August, the only parent we’ve got left, and we’ve got to make some arrangements so she won’t be living alone. Grandson #2 will be coming up to see us in July (and will hopefully NOT tangle with a copperhead this time), and #1 is going to have to go to the local community college at least his first year because costs at the university have doubled since he applied.

Perhaps things economic will get better soon. Despite being old enough to get jaded, new life always tends to make things look a lot more hopeful. All I know right now is that Little Miss Sunshine is sure happy to be here, and Grandma is sure happy to meet her!

One daughter, her annoying (and very loud) boyfriend, one niece and her not-annoying boyfriend, two semi-sons and their wives, one grandson and three old Navy buddies (plus 2 wives). It’s been a busy week here at the lake house for Mama and Papa Elf, who always stretch out Christmas over the entire length of the holidays. That’s a perk we give ourselves after a grueling season at the mall contributing to the Pagan trappings of the consumerist frenzy.

I’ve baked cookies and managed two batches of fudge that ended up as chocolate syrup on ice cream instead. I’ve cooked lots and lots of meals and done more dishes than should be allowed by law. I’ve attempted to lay down the gated community ‘law’ to the annoying boyfriend who apparently believes we’re all deaf because he is, and have so far managed to prevent any real damage to my sister’s nice new retirement home. I did fall down the steps from the loft on my way to the bathroom this morning, thereby breaking my foot.

So now I’m ensconced on the wing chair in front of the fireplace with my foot on a pillow. I’m not cooking, not washing dishes, and not cleaning up after the barbarian hoards. They’re all leaving tomorrow, so hopefully I can get all the Christmas decorations packed and the sheets washed and the kitchen and bathrooms sanitized in time to make it home for dinner! The beautiful log McMansion no worse for wear and tear, myself a bit more battered (and gimpy) than I’d have liked. Pretty much par for the course.

I figured out awhile back that everybody’s family is dysfunctional to a certain extent, some more than others. A family as big as mine has more than its share of off-colored sheep, but I love ‘em all anyway. Did talk to younger daughter who couldn’t make it here for the holidays, and have been participating regularly in her “Virtual Baby Shower.” Our Marine warrant officer son called Christmas Day to tell us he’s transferring to North Carolina in May, which will put two more grandchildren within easy spoiling range!

I hope the holidays have been full of family, friends and fun for all my readers out there, and here’s hoping that 2008 will be a more hopeful year for everyone, all over the country and all over the world. Peace on Earth, good will to everyone regardless of age, sex, color, culture or beliefs!

Back in our younger days when we lived in Florida and had to entertain crowds of friends and relatives at Christmas, we used to rent an oceanfront condo for the week. We’d decorate the condo instead of the house, and have our Christmas there. Not being a big fan of doing a lot of actual decorating myself (if I had my d’ruthers all I’d have are pegs on the wall and bare furniture), and given the fact that as clown-elves we were usually working exhausting mall shifts right through Christmas Eve, this worked out fine for me.

Working at malls isn’t the same thing as shopping at malls. Which I never do, because everything at the mall costs three times what it’s worth so that mall shops can pay rent on the high-dollar property and hire expensive entertainers like us to bring in the crowds. I’ve always been of the strong opinion that elves should be able to postpone Christmas until New Year’s without suffering any ’spirit’ penalties (and coincidentally cashing in on all the after-Christmas sales when everything costs half or less of what it cost the day before Christmas). But of course it’s never actually works out that way.

Then 15 years ago our son died, our business (he was a partner) collapsed, and we moved our broken hearts to a small mountain cabin to mend and figure out a way to start over. Our daughter and her 2-year old son moved with us, and we’ve been here ever since (and we adopted a few along the way). Until this year we’ve always decorated the cabin – it’s definitely made for Christmas! – even if we were planning to be elsewhere for the actual holidays.

Well, I probably shouldn’t say “we.” Elder daughter is the decorator in this family, and she’s nothing like me. She’s a regular pack rat about ’stuff’, a dedicated thrifter and recycler with honest-to-gosh mounds of ’stuff’ I’d have tossed years ago, and collects dust-catchers obsessively. She’s also a Christmas nut. She removes all the everyday dust-catchers on the shelves and mantle and walls, replaces them with an even bigger collection of Christmas dust-catchers. She has dozens of ceramic, plastic, resin and wax Santas. She has dozens of angels too, and both these collections come in black and white (ethnically speaking).

She has Christmas candle holders and Christmas candles and Christmas artwork for the walls. She even tapes Christmas hats on the collection of school picture 8×10s of our grandson. We’ve more Christmas ornaments than can be hung on the 15-foot tree that usually graces our cathedral ceiling living room. So she hangs ornaments on the fake evergreen garland complete with mass amounts of white lights that drapes the stairway to the loft, the mantle, the double doors to the deck, the windows, the kitchen beams, the front deck rail, the eaves of the roof, and the stairs to the basement.

She has Christmas curtains, Christmas rugs, Christmas throws, Christmas cushions, Christmas coffee cups, Christmas cutting boards, Christmas dishes, Christmas salt and pepper shakers, Christmas serving bowls, Christmas shot glasses and Christmas tablecloths. This little cabin turns into a regular Pigeon Forge-style All Christmas All The Time shop for three weeks a year, and I must admit that since I don’t have to do the heavy lifting, I’ve grown quite accustomed to it. Even fond, if missing it this year is any indication.

But my baby sister wrote a couple of months ago that she wanted to come with her husband and three children to spend Christmas this year with us. Which I certainly couldn’t refuse, since we lost a sister this past spring and family is important. The daughter of the sister we lost is also coming for Christmas with her fiance, younger daughter and her husband may come from Indiana, and we’ve friends from West Virginia and Cleveland who will be here the day after Christmas on their way to Florida. There simply isn’t enough floor space or padding in my 28′x28′ cabin to put that many people up, and it’s too cold to make them all pitch tents in the yard.

So I arranged to borrow our older sister’s new log McMansion in a gated resort community on a lake just south of here. She and her husband are out of the country for two more years, we’re the caretakers, and their retirement home has a lot more floor space (plus 4 bedrooms and 3 baths) than I’ve got. Thus my elder daughter has been packing all our collected Christmas stuff into her car and taking it to the McMansion. She’s very excited to decorate (it’ll be gorgeous, I’ve no doubt) and get photos for her portfolio. And this sort of thing could be a real money-maker for her one of these days. She is very good at it, given that theater tech is her degree and that’s all about sets and stage dressing.

Plus the McMansion’s got big, really cool brand new appliances – including fancy ones – plus a real dining table and a stone-top L-shaped island/bar that can easily serve 30. Christmas dinner will be wonderful, we’ll film us all around the 20-foot tree singing carols and beam it overseas so big sister can see, we’ll have lots of presents and lots of music and watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” every 6 hours or so, and have a truly memorable Christmas.

Meanwhile, my cabin looks just like it always does. Drab and overly dusty, not a hint of Christmas. Sure, we’ll have to come back every day (it’s only 17 miles) to feed the critters, and when the northern visitors come we’ll have to come back for the annual Kudzu Open disc golf championship.

Ah, well. I’ll just remember that we used to have Christmas somewhere else every year, so doing it again isn’t a big deal. When it’s over I’ll post some pictures of how the decorating turned out. It’s never too early to start obsessively collecting Christmas stuff for next year (while it’s on half-price sale!).

Many, many moons ago when my children were actually little children (and we were quite poor), we all learned how much our extended family and friends loved to get presents from us that we’d made ourselves, however imperfect they might be. Because they represent some real thought, some hard work, and each comes with a little bit of ourselves mixed in.

That first year I’d decided that there would be no ornaments on our tree that we didn’t make. Got some construction paper, glue and glitter, and went to work. Daughter made some nice round ornaments with patterns of bright glitter on both sides that nicely reflected the lights. Son decided cutting glittered rounds into spirals worked nicely, and they certainly did! They hang with depth a little like icicles, but with personality. Then the next year they got together and made many more glittered paper ornaments with the names of loved ones written in puffy paint on top of the glitter, “so they can be here with us for Christmas,” my son explained. We still have a surprising number of these paper and glitter ornaments, and hang them still, every Christmas.

As presents for others we started with some simple candlemaking, a kit with wax, dye and some plastic molds that I bought on sale. The kids made some extremely ugly monkey-face candles that my Mother-in-Law still cherishes. She’s never lit them, they come out for display every Christmas in her home. We still make all our own Christmas cards out of basic scrapbooking supplies and recycled cards from years before, and all the grandchildren started out making their own holiday gifts and decorations with whatever’s on hand. Someday I might collect all the great kid-ideas and write a craft book, since most of those type of books are written by Martha Stewart types instead of kids who have The Best Ideas On The Planet.

If you’ve got children old enough to wield a pair of scissors and use an Easy-Bake oven, there are some very good craft ideas out on the web this time of year that you might want to try. It’s good quality time to spend with your children, a fine mess to be made (and cleaned up) by all, and lots of laughs! It can become a tradition at your home too, and it honestly does impart a different sort of view of the “holy days” than what they get from television or the mayhem at the mall.

Deborah over at Simply Thrifty blog has a list of 50 Holiday Things You Can Make Yourself that has links to instructions for all 50 items. These include a wreath, an evergreen garland, greeting cards, popcorn and cranberry chains, a Menorah, a dreidle, traditional Kwanzaa decorations, and a bunch of good cookies, cake and candy your kids can help you whip up. Pine cone ornaments, stockings, bath salts and potpourri – there’s something here for every level of skill and every age range.

So if you’re sick of the consumerist frenzy and ‘Bah, Humbug!’ mood of what should be a joyful holiday season, set some time aside for your family. Amass some paper, glitter, old cards, toothpicks, felt and glue and get busy! You’ll never be sorry, and your children will learn something valuable about holidays and about their own abilities which will only be reinforced tenfold when the recipients of their gifts let them know how truly appreciated they are!

Links:

50 Holiday Things You Can Make Yourself

The Garden Granny [Holiday Food Gifts]

Discount Craft Supplies

Anything Crafts

1001 Full-Size Patterns, Projects & Ideas

365 Easy Projects for Every Occasion

It’s Thanksgiving week. I’m of course hosting two dozen guests – family and friends – for the day, and nearly a dozen for the whole week. This means the younger generations will be coming here for the feast. Someday I’m hoping one of them will invite me for the feast and I won’t have to cook a thing!

We do share the cost, the cooking duties and the clean-up (I like to make the guys do dishes, but sometimes it’s more efficient to just do them myself). We’ll use paper plates and plastic cups for the actual meal, but there will be lots of silverware, inevitable plates and serving bowls, pots, pans, storage containers, measuring doo-dads, etc., etc. that should preferably be washed as they come empty or used. Washing down work surfaces, serving surfaces and eating surfaces is always a chore I give to the grandkids.

I will be cooking two large turkeys this year (that I know of). One brought from Florida, one from West Virginia. I’ll cook one a day early, slice it up and refrigerate it for seconds and thirds, pick it for doggy Thanksgiving. There will be at least 6 dogs here, and they’re family too. The other I’ll roast so that it comes out of the oven just in time for dinner, let one of the macho guys slice it up.

It’s a sort of pot-luck too, people will be bringing their specialties. I’ll bake whole wheat dinner rolls, the mashed potatoes and yams will be cooked here too. Then there’s the crackberry sauce no holiday meal is complete without. That’s your basic whole fresh cranberry sauce with a bag of frozen blackberries (can mix raspberries, strawberries and blueberries too) mixed it, sweeter than cranberry sauce and very tasty on the ice cream we’ll put on top of our pumpkin pie later.

Oh, yeah. There’s the pies. Have to bake at least 10 pumpkin pies to get through the weekend, as two of my grandchildren will eat nothing but pumpkin pie for breakfast and at least two slices before bed. The leftover turkey and gravy will get glumped in together as turkey “shit on a shingle” to ladle onto open leftover dinner rolls, good for at least two nights’ meals. Basic turkey sandwiches for lunch, and leftover mashed potatoes for potato pancakes at breakfast on Saturday. Yams make excellent pancakes too, for that matter, so long as they aren’t candied. If they’re candied and you’ve leftovers, heat ‘em up and put them on top of the potato pancakes instead of syrup!

There will be macaroni salad, always good for a quick snack. And the hopping john, which is a meal all by itself. That’s collard greens, black eyed peas and rice cooked in vegetable broth, a staple for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s around here. Of course you can’t serve hopping john without cornbread, so I usually bake up a couple of cake pans’ worth of that too. As leftovers just crumble the cornbread into a microwave-proof bowl and ladle the hopping john on top. Hit the Magic Minute button and voila! Lunch!

Once the turkeys have been fairly stripped you’ll want to pop those leftovers – including bones – into a freezer bag. If it’s cold in your area you could store it out on an elevated porch such as I have where animals can’t get to it and it won’t take up room in the fridge where bowls of this and that and the other compete with pies for space. As soon as the crowd thins out, put it all into that big ol’ enameled canning pot and cover with water. Boil it all the way down to broth. You can of course add carrots and celery and herbs and onions and such at this point, rough-chopped. After a couple of hours it’s ready to strain and put into jars. You can can these so they don’t have to be kept frozen or in the fridge, or not. Turkey soup stock is great starter for wintertime soups. Then discard the bones where the dogs can’t get at them. We usually hold them for a dumpster run the day I make the broth, just to make sure. They can kill your dog.

I am a big believer that you can’t have too much food for the feast. Anything that doesn’t get eaten Thanksgiving Day or evening will most certainly get eaten on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It’s the Feast that Keeps On Giving, and that’s just as it should be. That way Mom or Grandma doesn’t have to do more than one day’s worth of hard core kitchen-sitting, everybody eats well, and nobody goes home hungry!