Okay, so apparently I was still in a food coma today (when you eat supper right before midnight, you have to carry it over to Friday), even though I only managed to make four of the ten items on my original Thanksgiving menu.

Above are stuffing, cranberry jelly, and the weird looking mashed potatoes that happen when you forget you only made one person’s worth of potatoes and add four people’s worth of milk to the pot. The shiny nature is because eventually I just wanted to eat, so I added tapioca to dry it out some. I’ll cook another potato and mix it in when I heat up the leftovers.

Not pictured is the corn pudding, which was also a little wetter than I’d hoped it would be, probably because my corn was frozen, rather than fresh. I’m keeping my fingers crossed it will dry out a little more when I reheat it in the oven. My cranberry and my stuffing were excellent, so at least I had that going for me.

I’ll be making a couple more of my menu items over the weekend and will let you know how those culinary misadventures go.

Also over the weekend, I’ll get to the things that I was supposed to cross off my list today, including contacting folks about the Virtual Advent Tour. I will definitely send emails today. If any of you want to proactively volunteer to give me a post for the 5th (Saturday) or 7th (Monday), that would be really helpful, since I have a work event all next weekend. But I’ll be in touch either way.

Finally, before I go, let me put in a plug for Small Business Saturday. Local economies are hurting this year in unprecedented ways and small business owners are struggling to keep up with increased safety requirements and decreased foot traffic. If you have the ability to support your local shops, please do. They pay taxes in your town (and, hell, your country), employ local workers at decent wages, and put their dollars back into your community. (Remind me to show you a picture of Jeff Bezos’ guest mansion one of these days. It’s just up the road.) If you don’t have a local bookshop or yarn shop, the internet can help you buy small elsewhere. Many small businesses are offering specials today (including sometimes free shipping), and that gift card or small purchase you make could end up being the sale that keeps someone in business another month. You could be a hero today and get your holiday shopping done!