Grazing and Knitting

Thanksgiving has thankfully come and didn’t get a chance to properly go before the start of the Black Friday and the holiday shopping madness.

This is really one of my favorite times of year. Yes, it gets dark earlier, and the weather can be from brisk to freezing. That makes it all the easier to cuddle up with a mug of something hot to read a good book, get lost in the complexity of symphony, or knit something. Gone is the allure of sunset at 9pm or a sunlight-bathed world to seduce us to forget ourselves and go outside.

I had to recognize that although I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving—as in getting together with family or friends to have meal—I do have a Thanksgiving tradition. About 25 years ago, I discovered a prepared food shop had several different kinds of stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy and traditional vegetables available. Since then I treat myself to a cornucopia of whatever stuffings are on offer cranberry sauce and gravy. Over the years, I started preparing the veg myself. This means I can graze all day without a mountain of leftovers and hours of preparation.

I used to drive my mother mad in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. I never liked turkey, but could/can eat stuffing forever. My mother would do a mix of commercially bought stuffing and bread ends that she froze, thawed, baked until they were toast and mixed with the commercial stuffing and spices. The problem was I would eat those cubes of commercial stuffing (she usually bought what she was going to cook before Halloween). Often the Saturday before she when she was checking ingredients before the final holiday shop, I would have gone through most if not all of the stuffing. Total exasperation and a lecture was the result.

Therefore, this Thanksgiving, I spent the day grazing and knitting the Gansey Leg Warmers in between a few naps and a few chores.