Warning! Flaming Hot Take Ahead: Thanksgiving is the least musical holiday. Apart from one very long “song” that I don’t think anyone under the age of 40 is aware of, when you think of Thanksgiving, no music springs to mind. Can you think of a song that even mentions Thanksgiving? If you say The Cranberries are a Thanksgiving band I will come to your house and make you pay for what you done said.
In order to satisfy my own curiosity I had to see if The Cranberries were a “the” band or just Cranberries. Some bands will try to pull that on you. I’m glad I did because otherwise I’d never know Google’s opinion on the matter. Burt Reynolds, huh?
And as long as we’re being bold, let me say that since I predicted a 40-seat net gain in Congress and came pretty close, I am back in the prognostication game: It’s going to be Beto.
Tarragon
Thanksgiving in Reno By Too Much Joy
WereBear
Hey, I love that long song!
Not like the holiday needs another one, is it?
SenyorDave
Thankful for the year coming to an end. Terrible year, wife diagnosed with lymphoma, mom died of undiagnosed cancer that had been in her body long enough to have spread her bones, . The one good life event for me – I got let go from job (I was leaving at year end, this way I got six months severance plus unemployment – 3 months less pay, 10 months less work).
Looking forward to better times next year, some long trips for me and wife, Panama Canal cruise in Jan, hopefully China or Japan in the fall. Also, lots of Congressional hearings and MUELLER!
Bruce K
Might that one long quote-song-unquote you mentioned up top be “Alice’s Restaurant”?
Ben Cisco
BWAHAAHAA
Ben Cisco
@SenyorDave: Wow – so sorry for the tough times. I can only say keep putting one foot in front of the other – eventually things take a turn. This place is awesome in that regard.
Amir Khalid
Is there a rock band named after the turkey? I can think of at least two named after the chicken, The Yardbirds and Little Red Rooster.
zhena gogolia
Wow, that is a hot take.
I don’t think even Shirley Temple has any Thanksgiving songs.
noncarborundum
“Over the River and Through the Woods” is a Thanksgiving song, but I think nowadays people associate it more with Christmas.
Suzanne
I told Alexa to play Thanksgiving music this morning as I peeled the potatoes, and she played “Like A Rolling Stone”. Like WTF.
Jewish Steel
@Bruce K: Bingo!
BruceFromOhio
We started with classical strings (Bell, Benedetti) then moved up to folk rock, now some classical acoustic guitar. Later may be some jazz trio with dinner.
Agree there is no defining Thanksgiving soundtrack.
BruceFromOhio
@Suzanne: bwahahaha that’s hilarious!
Miss Bianca
Oh, Swarby and RT look so young! I love this song. It’s a fun one to bellow around the house as you’re warming up for a gig, as long as you have tolerant house-mates.
Major Major Major Major
You’re not my dad!
hilts
Elton John and John Lennon at Madison Square Garden Thanksgiving 1974
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf6sILrY8p4
Performance starts at 2:25 of the video
Quaker in a Basement
Beto, huh?
I’ll confess to being wrong about political newcomers and sensations in the past. I thought Obama was too inexperienced in politics to make a good president. He was far better in reality than my reservations allowed.
That said, I think it’s a bad sign for our political future for flavor-of-the-day candidates to dominate our elections. The challenges our country faces are complex and we can’t let every damn thing become a wedge issue. We need some consensus to craft workable solutions, even where ONE party (ahem, glancing to the right) has committed itself to obstruction and extremism.
I’d far rather have a president who is bland and boring AF, but experienced in moving legislation and twisting arms to get the needed votes, than someone who excites the base with great sound bites.
Yeah, I know. My way sounds terribly centrist and it’s probably a recipe for defeat. In the times we live in, image is everything. I just can’t convince myself that we’re not taking crazy risks with untested candidates.
gene108
@SenyorDave:
Condolences on you’re mom’s passing. Hope things get better for you.
****************************
Thankful to be able to chill out and relax today.
Keith P.
The local radio station played Sandler’s “Turkey Song” (or whatever it’s called). My opinion of it has not changed over the years (“Why the *$%&# is this song *still* being played this year?!??!”)
Dorothy A. Winsor
An Irish friend of mine was startled to realize we actually do eat turkey and pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. She thought it was some sort of cliché or something. Then she was disappointed to hear we didn’t go around the table saying what we were thankful for.
germy
Graham Parker “Almost Thanksgiving Day”
debbie
@SenyorDave:
I am sorry for your crap year. Here’s hoping the next one will be extra lucky for you and your family.
BTW, anything Fairpoint Convention is something to be thankful for.
germy
Drive-By Truckers “Thanksgiving Filter”
germy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnGnj_e6gBw
A Tribe Called Red “Burn Your Village To The Ground” is a Thanksgiving song.
debbie
@debbie:
Let’s convert the West Wing to steam heat. See how he likes that humidity frizzing up his frizz up top.
germy
@Dorothy A. Winsor: A British friend told me how odd she found it that we Americans ate a big turkey meal on Thanksgiving, and then another one on Christmas. I didn’t know what to say.
Schlemazel
Sittin here on the Group W bench with mother stabers & father rapers. Has anyone seen what Tronald Dump is thankful for this day?
https://twitter.com/LarryJLongmoore/status/1065692052397150208
daryljfontaine
@germy: Christmas is for ham.
D
raven
@germy: Home boys. . . well until Patterson moved to Oregon!
Amir Khalid
@germy:
I would have gone with “Well, we really like turkey.”
raven
@SenyorDave: Hang in there!
debbie
@Schlemazel:
Oh, the irony!
raven
After much teeth gnashing we got my wife all booked for her spring trip to UK!
GregB
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you Balloonatics.
trollhattan
@Keith P.:
They’re softening you up for a month of “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”
Dorothy A. Winsor
@germy: I actually find that odd too.
JanieM
@noncarborundum:
SRSLY?
Over the river, and through the wood,
To Grandfather’s house we go;
the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh
through the white and drifted snow.
….
Over the river, and through the wood—
now Grandmother’s cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!
Even if the song didn’t explicitly mention Thanksgiving, who associates pumpkin pie with Christmas? ;-)
Wikipedia says this is the real original poem, or at least the start of it. But we always sang (heard?) it as “Grandmother’s house,” maybe because we were short on grandfathers. One of mine died when my mother (his daughter) was two, and the other died when I was quite young.
/ lighthearted quibbling
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
And especially for SenyorDave, better tomorrows.
Frankensteinbeck
I am thankful that I have an impressive ‘resume’ this time, and should be able to find an agent and a new publisher without too much trouble. I am thankful I had relatives to catch me and I’m not homeless because my publisher won’t pay me my royalties. I am thankful that I have a solid idea for the next book that will let me use phrases like ‘sawed-off gauss rifle.’
Christopher
“Don’t You (Forget About Me)” really *ought* to be a Thanksgiving anthem.
cminus
Thanksgiving music, eh? How about some Ray Davies?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYB22jmw3YY
randy khan
@Bruce K:
Could it possibly be anything else?
Alice’s Restaurant has the distinction of being part of the testimony in the Chicago 8 trial. Seriously.
Keith P.
@trollhattan: Nope…it’ll be Sandler’s “Hannukah Song”….every day for 2 weeks. That song sucked when it came out, but it gets dragged out every damn year.
Citizen Alan
@JanieM:
Most people associate Over the River and Through the Woods with Thanksgiving because they sing it at the end of the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special. Although has Charlie Brown notes, his grandmother actually lives in a condominium.
Booger
@Amir Khalid: weren’t the Yardbirds named for jailed prisoners rather than poultry?
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I could be really happy with O’Rourke. Either with him or Kamala Harris or Chris Murphy. My real fantasy would be a ticket of Maxine Waters and Elijah Cummings, but I don’t think the country is anywhere near ready for that yet.
oatler.
Caught some glimpses of Richard Thompson in that video but he must have had his guitar turned way down.
Peter H Desmond
there is one thanksgiving song i remember from the 1950s — “Come ye Thankful People, Come.” the relevant page from a hymnary (a new word to me): https://hymnary.org/text/come_ye_thankful_people_come
the author was henry alford. we read, “As a hymn-writer he added little to his literary reputation.”
the tune, which he stole, is nice, though. it’s sort of a harvest festival song. here’s a video of brits looking at garden produce, as a choir sings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k43ysxLzc0
Amir Khalid
@Booger:
I prefer to believe that The Yardbirds named themselves after the chicken. The Charlie Parker theory is unexciting, and the prison yard theory is downright depressing.
Belafon
I’m trying to convince my 13 year old to write some Thanksgiving music.
raven
@Amir Khalid: Cars and girls are easy to come by, in this day and age. . .
zhena gogolia
@Amir Khalid:
How about Freddie and the Dreamers and “Do the Chicken”?
Suzanne
@germy: Christmas dinner is a standing rib roast at Casa Suzanne. I don’t really like turkey that much.
Jeffro
Harris/O’Rourke 2020!
Harris/Hickenlooper 2020!
Klobuchar/Tester 2020!
Klobuchar/Castro 2020!
M. Bouffant
“That song” (Because it’s the 50th Thanksgiving since it was released?) has appeared today on at least three web-logs I regularly visit. Paid money to see the movie thereof in 1970 or ’71.
RedDirtGirl
@SenyorDave: Wow, that’s a hell of a lot to go through on top of an already crappy year. Sending you warm thoughts and holding your wife in the light.
Yutsano
I’m still of the opinion Beto should get into the Senate from Texas first. I could see him giving it a go against Cornyn and actually succeeding this time around Cornyn is Senate leadership who hasn’t done much of anything for Texas. Straight ticket voting is gone in Texas. I really think he’s destined to be a Senator first. And he’s still quite young yet. There’s plenty of time to get him to the White House.
satby
@SenyorDave: hoping for a better year for you and your wife too!
JPL
@Suzanne: Last year I made Adam’s recipe and it was awesome!
Chyron HR
@Jeffro:
If whichever candidate I arbitrarily latched onto loses the primary, then I’ll burn down human civilization 2020!
boatboy_srq
@noncarborundum: That was when November was snowy.
Pogonip
@Dorothy A. Winsor: We never did that either, and I’m thankful for that. ?
boatboy_srq
@SenyorDave: Ouch. Stay strong. Most of us have had at least some of that, although few all of that at once. My worst was losing Mum AND the job AND the house (Great Recession Days). The Commentariat was there for me even though they didn’t know it.
raven
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I think of the many Christmases I spent in Barrington and how my mother in law would make us do that stuff. One year she and my mother got in cahoots and made us do and even worse one.
boatboy_srq
I recall somewhere some “Internet wisdom” about the original name being What The Cranberries Saw or some such, with however many multiple interpretations you might like to come up with having already been thought of by the band. The Cranberries always seemed more like a Good Friday sound rather than Thanksgiving: all the angst and disillusionment and none of the hope.
The two “non-The” bands that always surprised me by being that way were Buggles and Eurythmics.
As for music for the holiday, Thanksgiving always seemed like that last big breath before hours and hours of caroling for Christmas: you needed the day of relative silence to soak up enough oxygen to sing nonstop for the next six weeks.
waratah
@Jeffro: Harris O’Rourke would not work even reversed. They are both leaders.
waratah
@Yutsano: Many Republicans want him to run for Senator not president. I wonder why.
divF
“I’ve got Plenty to be Thankful For”, from the movie Holiday Inn (1942).
Not exactly a Billboard Hot 100 hit.
TomatoQueen
Thanksgiving is always for: https://youtu.be/_aQonnNSATk
John Revolta
@JanieM: Second verse:
Over the river and through the wood
Trot fast, my dapple gray!
Leap over the ground like a hunting hound
For this is Thanksgiving Day!
Over the river and through the wood
Oh how the wind doth blow!
It stings the toes and bites the nose
As over the ground we go!
Happy Thanksgiving Jackals All!
Haroldo
@SenyorDave:
My condolences – I wish you a year with much less grief and pain.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@JanieM:
Well…
There is Perry Como’s (There’s No Place Like) Home for the Holidays
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@SenyorDave:
Condolences. I wish you and your wife well and a better rest of the year.
A Ghost To Most
“The Thanksgiving Filter”
P. Hood
boatboy_srq
@A Ghost To Most: That’s about as messy as Frazier Chorus’ “Christmas Every Year”
FelonyGovt
Wishing all jackals a wonderful, happy and healthy Thanksgiving and holiday season. I’m very grateful for you all.
Steve in the ATL
@Jeffro: not Tester—he would be replaced with a Russian. Er, a Republican.
Jacel
@cminus: I’m glad someone mentioned that. There’s a Kinks song for every occasion.
Keith P.
I didn’t get a start on cooking until 11:30am, and I’m only just now in the beginnings of cooking (put the stuffing in, have a pie crust blind-baking, about to throw in GB casserole). I’m not even making a turkey (I just threw some seasoned chicken breasts on top of the stuffing). After that, I just have to mix up pumpkin filling, steam some veggies, and whip up some hollandaise sauce. *Then* I can finally eat today and binge-watch some Prime shows.
Pogonip
@SenyorDave: Condolences.
JPL
I follow the Washington Post on twitter and this just popped up
Yeah right!
JPL
@SenyorDave: Enjoy your cruise and wish last year goodbye.
joel hanes
@Citizen Alan:
I was taught “Over The River And Through The Woods” as definitely a and only a Thanksgiving song, many years before Charlie Brown debuted on TV. It’s also a cold-weather and sleigh song, which will seem Just Wrong to people who don’t live in the north, but we often had significant snow cover for Thanksgiving in those days.
Hurrah ! for the pumpkin pie!
I spent the morning dry-brining the bird and constructing the dressing and getting started on the side dishes (fresh steamed green beans tossed with garlic and butter and a bit of asiago, scalloped corn, candied sweet potatoes under marshallow because my granddaughter would be desolated without it).
I think I’ll go dig out the serving dishes and construct the crudities/pickles/olives intro, and then it’s time for a shower.
Mike in NC
@JPL: George Will. Not exactly known for his sense of humor.
JMG
Dinner is almost finished, as soon as my two children, who have won cooking competitions together, finish their insanely complex version of a green been casserole without any mushroom soup. but with wild mushrooms, and with cippolline onions instead of good old French’s french fried in a can. I’m sure it’ll be delicious, they both really are amazing cooks, but I’m getting hungry.
joel hanes
I made the kids watch the “Alice’s Restaurant” movie one Thanksgiving, and what a mistake that was.
It turned out that my good memories were mostly from Arlo’s performance of the song, because it’s a pretty dreadful movie in a number of ways. The kids were baffled but patient; I was mortified.
FelonyGovt
@joel hanes: Some of the older movies we loved really don’t wear well. I was shocked by the misogyny and just generally disappointed when I re-watched the movie of Purple Rain.
Porco Rosso
A marksist perspective on Thanksgiving
https://youtu.be/0PtF0Jtj7cE
From Canada’s Carolyn Marks
Steve in the ATL
@joel hanes: sort of like when the Violent Femmes come on the radio and our kids really don’t understand why we think it’s great.
One of those “you had to be there” things
JPL
@Mike in NC: I didn’t click to it, so thanks for letting me know the name of the idiot who wrote that.
NotMax
At the time, before the LP had hit the record stores, the only way to hear “Alice’s Restaurant” was to gather ’round the radio, tune it to the hip progressive rock FM station and wait until the stroke of midnight. Very shortly after, they would play it – nightly. DJ was Alison Steele, The Nightbird.
Presume that was because midnight marked the time when there were fewer ad spots sold per hour.
Mohagan
@noncarborundum: that’s exactly the song that instantly popped into my head too. I think we used to sing it in elementary school. Otherwise, the only other song is “Come. Ye thankful people come, raise the song of harvest home”, which I think is another elementary classic, along with making turkeys out of construction paper.
Mohagan
@Dorothy A. Winsor: We always did at the big family Thanksgiving as long as my mother was alive. She insisted on it.
FRANK MCCORMICK
Hey, I’m over sixty and I have no idea what that “very long song” is.
Jeffro
@waratah: hater!
Also one holds office currently and one does not, so…yeah…
Mohagan
@germy: I used to think that when I was a kid too. Also, we rarely saw my aunt and uncle and their kids during the year. And then suddenly we saw them twice in a month – Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Jeffro
@Chyron HR: you do that
Me, I’ll just be voting Dem from here to eternity
Jeffro
@Steve in the ATL: oh please
NotMax
@NotMax
For the young’uns, ought to add that at the time, radios which included the FM band were, while not rare, also not prevalent.
Quick look across the room at the stand-alone KLH brand FM only tabletop radio, which still works. Solid wood case, individual bass and treble knobs along with the volume knob.
waratah
@Jeffro: I had to think of why you chose Tester then realized he could bring some conservative votes with him.
janesays
@Quaker in a Basement:
To be honest, if the alternative is Napoleorange, I’d rather have a pile of my dog’s excrement as president, so of course I’d gladly take bland and boring AF over what we’ve got right now.
That said, bland and boring AF candidates don’t get elected to the presidency – see Romney, Mitt, McCain, John, Kerry, John, Gore, Al, and Dole, Bob. Hell, even Hillary Clinton was “boring” in comparison to Trump, insofar as she was emotionally stable, competent, and not prone to childish outbursts.
The candidate with the stronger personality (“stronger” does not necessarily mean “better”) almost always wins the presidential election. Trump is a repugnant malevolent unqualified clown, but the one thing he could never really be accused of is being “vanilla”. For all the wrong reasons, he’ll be one of the more recognized presidents of the 21st century (just as Nixon was in the 20th century).
I sure as shit don’t want someone like Avenatti to be the nominee, but I also don’t want someone who is going to put the less politically engaged voters to sleep on the stump.
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
There’s a reason “The Good Place” revealed that as the favorite song of demons.
Also, the song is totally about Grandpa murdering Grandma and framing Santa for the crime, and the rest of the family is either too stupid or too cowed to realize it.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Just began watching TGP and am sufficiently hooked to find and binge-watch from the beginning.
Swear to bog there’s an animated movie based on the damn song, which wrings out any and all chuckles with the title, the exposition is a beached dead carp.
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
There is also an accompanying official podcast hosted by Mark Evan Jackson (he plays Shawn). He gets a great mix of the actors, writers, and behind-the-scenes folks like the costume designers and animal trainers. Make sure you Google for the official podcast, though, because there are a lot of fan ones.
Gotta go, turkey’s being sliced. Happy Thanksgiving!
Steeplejack
@FRANK MCCORMICK:
“Alice’s Restaurant,” by Arlo Guthrie.
Emma
Our Thanksgiving was lovely, peaceful, and tasty. We decided a few years ago we could do without the cooking/family agitas. So it’s my father, my sister and her husband, my BIL’s mother, and I at a restaurant that makes excellent food. My Thanksgiving meal was an appetizer of chicken pesto flatbread, caramelized scallops over sweet potato risotto with grilled lemons and lightly steamed caulilini. Desert was miniature key lime pie in a shot glass.
I am thankful.
hilts
@joel hanes:
The song Alice’s Restaurant is still great, but the film Alice’s Restaurant is about 2 hours too long.
ruemara
It’ll a whoever gets black women behind them. Not only is that a flaming hot take, it’s accurate AF.
The cooking stopped recently, so we’re packing up our food and headed over to my friends’ house for dinner soon. I just have to clean up and pack all this damned food.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: When I hear “long song” I think of Revolution #9…#9…#9…
ETA: Of course, there is the 30 minute long version of Helter Skelter.
NotMax
Fingers crossed because am trying out making cornbread in the super duper bread machine. Added some coarsely chopped jalapeños to the recipe. Needed to dig out the instructions to confirm how to use the Cake setting, which the recipe recommends over the Bread setting in this case.
And the neighbor next door just now fired up his lawnmower. Not a cool move on a major holiday, dude.
ruemara
@Frankensteinbeck: I got to use “your vagina’s a wasteland” in dialogue and I am very thankful for that.
JPL
@Emma: Ours was lovely also. Originally it was suppose to be just my SIL and myself, but then my son and his wife didn’t want to miss the annual combing through the newspaper ads for things we won’t buy so they came over. The only thing close to politics we discussed was how much I’m enjoying Michelle’s book.
I’m thankful.
Frankensteinbeck
@ruemara:
Someone understands me.
JPL
Tomorrow I plan on starting and finishing my X-mas shopping so for that I’m thankful. I do plan on going to Kohl’s but after seven when the first wave left. The rest is from Amazon for my soon to be born grandson.
Suzanne
Our meal was great. I am stuffed and pie will have to come later.
Now commencing the quintessential American tradition of laying on the couch and moaning.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Thick as a Brick? A Passion Play? Then once you get to the CD era you find some even longer ones. I think Brian Eno and Mike Oldfield both did hour-long tracks, and there are some even longer tracks I can cite by obscure metal acts, some of which wouldn’t even fit on CDs (L’Acephale and Corrupted collaborating with Asunder both have tracks in excess of ninety minutes long).
Beto is the first white guy I could see myself voting for in the primary, but it’s far too early to make up my mind.
(((CassandraLeo)))
As for other bands you’d expect to have “the” in their names that don’t: Pixies, Grateful Dead, Talking Heads. The latter even hung a lampshade on it with their live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads.
maeve
My favorite Thanksgiving movie is “Pieces of April“
Keith P.
I just gave one of my kittens her first taste of whipped cream (sitting on top of a failed Paula Deen pumpkin pie recipe). I knew she’d love it, and she did not disappoint.
NotMax
@JPL
As Amazon’s Black Friday has been running all this week, did a modicum of shopping there yesterday. Mostly to avoid Friday, when the rush puts a strain on their site, which can and does sometimes become glitchy when it is inundated.
zzyzx
Really? No one mentioned The Last Waltz? That’s probably the quintessential Thanksgiving concert and why there are so many covers of it this week.
Kayla Rudbek
Finished with dinner and the duty phone call with the parents. Worried that my brother failed to call both my parents and me as well. My spouse will soon do his duty phone calls. I will hopefully manage to go through my fabric stash before bedtime tonight and get some online shopping done as well.
debbie
Is there no love for Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother Suite?
JPL
@NotMax: So far the car seat and the baby carrier I marked have not budged in price. I’m checking Amazon and buybuybaby. So odd to just buy baby stuff for the grandchild who is arriving in January. I’d love to buy something more personal, but that’s what they want.
NotMax
While not specifically aimed at Thanksgiving, some reminiscent of T Day tunes have linked to in the past:
“All That Meat and No Potatoes” by Fats Waller
“I Like Pie, I Like Cake” by the Four Clefs
Matt McIrvin
Came pretty close? If the Democrat takes CA-21 you will be exactly correct. 538 now projects that as the most likely outcome.
low-tech cyclist
@John Revolta:
Hard to say it’s a Christmas song when the lyrics say it’s Thanksgiving!
If you don’t remember the verses that specifically mention Thanksgiving day, I can see why one would associate it with Christmas. You’ve got to be pretty far north nowadays to have even a decent chance of snow on the ground on Thanksgiving, let alone enough for a horse to pull a sled full of people over:
MomSense
The guitars, keyboards, and amps are out and we’ve got a Thanksgiving jam happening. The pup is eating the turkey gizzards, and I’m drinking a beer with my feet up taking in the scene.
low-tech cyclist
Anyway, I’m glad to have one holiday that, at least in and of itself, is immune to commercialization. (Black Friday has nothing to do with Thanksgiving.)
Suzanne
@JPL:
Good on you for getting them the stuff they need. Everybody likes to give cutesy personal stuff for babies…..and then you still have to go spend a boatload on the basics because no one wanted to get you practical stuff. Can you tell I remember that and am bitter?
Although jogging strollers should be purchased on Craigslist.
JPL
@Suzanne: Nextdoor is useful also. I figure I need a pack and play, so have been watching there.
Steve in the ATL
@MomSense: tube amps, right? RIGHT?!??!
JPL
@Suzanne: My son is tall and his gift is going to be the onya baby carrier because they seem to adapt to size He works for a company that has great benefits but he only has two weeks of paternity leave. The DIL has 3 months.
Emma
@JPL: Each and every one of my, count them, ten cousins proclaim that my sister’s “baby baskets” are the best baby shower gift ever. She buys a pretty oversize basket and fills it with extras of all the basics, from bottles to bibs to tiny cute everyday t-shirts. Hypoallergenic soaps and powder. Then she wraps them in ribbon.
As one of them told me “church-going outfits for newborns are all well and good but at 3am and the kid just barfed I need a clean sleep shirt and diaper!”
James E Powell
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I think of Ina-Gadda-Da-Vida.
JPL
@Emma: I used cloth diapers so I’m trying to be careful on advice, and I assume she will nurse, because I’m like Tom Brady’s wife on that,
Yutsano
@Kayla Rudbek: We’re at the pie phase right now. Way too many good options. I might wait until the rush passes.
Mike J
Thank you, friends
Wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you
I’m so grateful
For all the things you helped me do
All the ladies and gentlemen
Who made this all so probable
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vo5me1Apsw
Steve in the ATL
@Yutsano: my favorite phase of thanksgiving day. Even better than the drinking enough wine to forget that your brother in law feels the need to concealed carry at the dinner table phase.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@SenyorDave: I really hope you and your wife have a much better year in the next one. We had two cancer scares in our house this year; my wife, on her back and our daughter, on her upper leg. Both were removed, our daughter’s as a precaution as the cells were “abnormal” and she is a melanoma survivor.
You and your wife are in my thoughts and have my best wishes. Happy Thanksgiving to all. :)
Yutsano
@Steve in the ATL: It’s going to be nice because it looks like I won’t need to be here too late. But I didn’t get any grape juice. Will have to correct this oversight on the morrow.
raven
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Hey Brah, how you doin???
FRANK MCCORMICK
@Steeplejack: Thanks. I haven’t listened to it since college, so the memory is dim. Mostly I remember the repeating refrain and the idea of a massacre and hippiedom. But my neurons appear to have never captured the “Thanksgiving” keyword .
BobS
A Beto/Michelle Obama (or better yet- Michelle Obama/Beto) ticket would trounce any Republican who ran, including Trump.
JPL
This is not a bad deal for black friday ..
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Coleman-70-Qt-Xtreme-Chest-Cooler-3000002011/304233938
Since my gatherings are smaller, I use it as a bench but its a good deal.
ThresherK
Stan Freberg’s Take an Indian to Lunch.
NotMax
@ThresherK
Ding. No more callers, please. We have a winner.
Steeplejack
@Steve in the ATL:
My condolences. That is seriously pathetic. And I say that as someone whose RWNY brother in Las Vegas has multiple handguns strategically deployed around his house, e.g., drawer in the guest bathroom, bottom drawer in the bedside table, under a throw pillow on the couch (I almost sat on that one once). That’s not all of them, just the ones I found in a cursory five-minute search. And that’s not including the shotgun he had leaning against the wall by his bed. (I put that under the bed while I was housesitting.) I don’t think he has a concealed-carry permit, but if not that’s probably because he is a misanthrope who doesn’t go out much. (To the benefit of everybody, it goes without saying.)
Mnemosyne
@Steve in the ATL:
One of my friends at work has a hilarious tale of a Thanksgiving dinner with his side of the family, which his wife wanted to do because she didn’t think they could possibly be as white trash as he had told her.
And then they dropped the N-word at the dinner table. In reference to then-President Obama.
On the bright side, they never had to spend another holiday with that side of the family again.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne:
I think too many of us underestimate this in our fellow Americans.
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
She’s a nice upper-middle-class girl from Orange County. She had never encountered genuine white trash before.
His dad had a house in Quartzsite. That kind of white trash.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, that part of the world is a part I drive through very quickly and do not make restroom stops.
However, one of my cousins once told me, “White trash go everywhere”, and truer words have not been spoken in this many a year.
chopper
@Steeplejack:
my gun nut brother made it a point to let me know that he kept his handgun in the glove box rather than bring it inside, cause we’re having xgiving in chicago so that’s apparently a big deal.
Steve in the ATL
@Steeplejack: cray-cray!
@Mnemosyne: I love a happy ending!
Steeplejack
@chopper:
It’s an illness—some attempt to shore up fragile, threatened masculinity and to combat the “monsters from the id” that can’t really be identified. And in my brother’s case it’s an adjunct to his lifelong struggle with major depression.
MomSense
@Steve in the ATL:
Is there any other kind?
gogiggs
@Tarragon: She said ‘I am a hug/I wrap around you and I scrub’
gogiggs
@Suzanne: How did it feel? How did it feeeeel?
dr. luba
Mary Chaplin Carpenter
wasabi gasp
Beto has not only lost his senate bid, but he’s lost one of his best qualities; his not-Ted Cruzishness. It was such an important quality, everybody looked past the i-wanna-ice-cream ants-in-the-pants-dance thing he does. Nobody’s getting elected prez with moves like that. Gonna need to step it up.
Jamey
As long as Bob’s Burgers is on the air, there will be a deep and rich tradition of Thanksgiving music.
Quaker in a Basement
@janesays: I hear ya and I know you’re right. That’s the point of my lament.
wenchacha
Thanks for the link to my favorite imaginary boyfriend, Richard Thompson. I am thankful to have seen him in concert a few times, and to meet him once or twice. Just to say thanks.