Thanksgiving dinner was a success. I'm sure my parents appreciated us carting the whole meal over in a large cooler and a milk crate. No doubt we looked like a couple of meshuggenahs showing up on their back porch, ready to camp out, minus a tent, Coleman stove, and Coleman lantern. Sort of like "Meals on Wheels" meets Borat.

Mom was jazzed enough to set the dining room table, complete with her monogrammed solid sterling silverware and crystal goblets. They sport just the first initial of my family's surname, but it's the "special" stuff brought out only for grand occasions. When I was a kid in the '60s and early '70s, she used it for dinner parties. Now it's only used for holidays.

Dad never cooked. Mom's too ill to even go out for dinner at the golf club the way we used to for perhaps the past 10 years. Her MS started to get a lot worse a couple of years ago. We catered Thanksgiving dinner for them last year as well, but just brought it over to drop off. This year, we brought it all over in containers wrapped with lots of dish towels, and lined it all up on the counter in the breakfast nook. Grab a plate, zip down the buffet line, take it into the dining room, and tuck in.

We really didn't have much in the way of leftovers, except for the wild rice & mushroom dressing and turkey . . . which brings me to the balloon of Kermit. I hadn't eaten anything all day, then filled my plate with a little bit of everything for dinner. That was quite a big meal for me to eat in a single sitting, but probably no more than I would eat in a single day anyway, spread out over two or three smaller meals. Why Kermit? Only because he goes with the Froggie theme. I think Kermit last flew in the Macy's parade sometime in the '80s.

When we got home, Emma the kitty was all over us like a bad rash. But she happily tucked into a meal of cut-up pieces of turkey thigh, then left us alone to go sleep it off. Good girl.

The turkey carcass is already in a large stockpot simmering away. We may make turkey soup, freeze some of the stock, and make turkey chili or turkey curry out of the leftovers--particularly the dark meat. I'm convinced that a good mouth-numbing chili or curry could be made with rodent, and nobody would ever know what they're eating, sort of like a road-kill burgoo.

I don't know about you, but it's time to start my Christmas shopping. I pretty much have ordered everything online for the past decade, so there's no reason to tackle the Mall at Short Hills, with all the cars from New York jockeying for space so they don't have to pay sales tax on their clothing or gourmet food purchases (or lower taxes on everything else). It's too much of a zoo for me. I can order from Eddie Bauer or Cabela's online, and have no interest in Godiva, Fendi, Gucci, Nordstrom, Jaeger, Bloomingdales, etc.

Have a great weekend, everyone!