Episode 57: A Resilient Thanksgiving
It’s Thanksgiving week and you all know what that means. We are in full holiday season mode. It’s time to buy the children of all your friends some cheap plastic toys, go into debt buying that heirloom ham, and run frantically around attending all the parties and gatherings, including a thing called “Friendsgiving” so that by January 3rd you are broke, sick, and surrounded by clutter. This is one of my favorite times of year because if you get it under control, there is so much fun to be had.
We will talk about that and all of the fun recipes we will be trying, along with a ridiculous list of things that have been going on since we last spoke in today’s show. Because, what is a Thanksgiving show without hunger pains in your stomach, as well as a bit of recipe inspiration.
And with that, we are skipping our regular segments in favor of some holiday-specific ones.
That’s right, it is the time of year that hits so many people so hard. They miss their loved ones who have died. Maybe they never had a family and wish they could have what others have. Or there is that immense pressure to keep up with everyone else. And the Holidays are so fun if you let them be. You can honor the loved ones you’ve lost – or never had – and create a season, with the ever increasing length of night, when it gets cold and difficult to motivate to do things, and take control of it.
All year long, we’ve talked about navigating transition, building resilience in our lives through building new income streams, growing and storing food, and getting ourselves ready for things most likely to happen, rather than paying attention to the goat circus that is the US Non-news news. ANd this boils down to something pretty simple: Building habits that increase your stability, while expanding your mind to better navigate wild variables – to look at things in different ways.
Three steps to navigating holidays to your advantage:
- Establish what is important to you and your family/friends
- Set reasonable expectations
- Find the fun AND FREE things that make the holidays fantastic
Pop quiz: a coworker, who you genuinely like, buys you an unexpected surprise gift, and it is an expensive bottle of booze. Do you:
- Run to the store and get something of like value for them
- Stand around ashamedly admitting you are getting them nothing to keep control of your holiday spends
- Go get them a gift of lessor value but put thought into it?
- SOMETHING ELSE
Stories from the Holler
- The incredible breaking pump house
- A visit from Brian
- The Hawk and the Dead Duck
- Deep Purge
- The stray pig
- Goat hijinks
- Random Oyster Mushrooms
- Did I mention the stray pig? And the goats?
- A drop in from David from Cider Hollow and related roasting camper set up
Thanksgiving recipes
- Grandma Sauce’s Apple Pie
- Grandpa Darby’s Pie Crust Recipe
- Chestnut Dressing
- How to prepare the turkey
- Cranberry Sauce
- Roasted Butternut Squash
- Sauce’s Savory Sweet Potatoes
- How to speed up bread staling for stuffing
- Homemade Croutons
Resources
