We had a very nice, low-key Thanksgiving dinner here — just me, Brian, and my mom. Mom and I spent several hours in the kitchen cooking and baking, and Brian took care of all the dishes afterward. Dinner was simple and yummy, especially the roast chicken (recipe courtesy of my friend Stephen). It was nice to make a meal that could have been enjoyed almost any other day, rather than piling our plates with a mountain of traditional side dishes.

While we weren’t cooking, we worked on knitting and drank wine and watched cooking shows. I opened up the bottle of French red that Tamara brought home from Europe this summer. It was so good. I am going to try to finish the last of it this weekend. Brian poured grape juice into his wine glass. That wacky husband.

It was actually a quite wonderful day. It helped that the sky was blue throughout. The weather is the same today — clear and mid-thirties at the moment. It’s Black Friday, the day people spend a lot of money on cheap gifts at big box stores and shopping malls. I think I have been watching too many of Brian’s environmental awareness shows. Days like this just make me think of endless tons of disposable crap making a long and meaningless trek from a grim factory in China to a landfill in the United States.

Today is also Buy Nothing Day.