Post-Thanksgiving

Wedding china and silverware have been inaugurated.  Thanksgiving dinner has been eaten, and then eaten again, and then broken down into leftovers, which have also been eaten.  Family has been here and gone.  China and a few decorations await being put away, to make room for new.  

It's crazy how much thought and planning go into these single days, and then suddenly they are over.  I almost like the planning and the thinking and the dreaming part more than the actual holidays themselves.  Now looking towards Christmas, it's not even the day itself that I'm really excited for, at least not yet.  I'm excited for the wrapping, and the envelope addressing, and the tree put-upping, and the Christmas music listening, and the peppermint mocha drinking.  But not yet.  December 1st is the date for beginning my own personal Christmas season, but not before.  (Ok, I may indulge in a peppermint mocha or two in the meantime...)  I don't see the need to rush out and decorate in red and green and Nativities and candy-cane stripes and start listening to the fa-la-la-ing right away the day after Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving deserves it's own time and space, and I like the idea of taking a break between the two, even if it's just for a week.  There's too much pressure otherwise.  I like to step back and take a breath and do some of this dreaming and planning in my head, without having to actually dive into it all right away.  

Today I took a break to do some cooking and baking, not because it was necessary, but just because I wanted to.  Breakfast was pumpkin pancakes and sausages.  I accidentally thinned the batter out by adding too much milk, but I really enjoyed the end result.  The pancakes were almost crepe-like, thin and light without being too bulky.  

Then I moved on to cranberry crumble bars and banana bread (not shown).  I used homemade cranberry sauce from Thursday to form the middle layer of these bars...I'm not a big fan of cranberries on their own, but in these bars, they are delicious.  I look forward to eating them for breakfast all week.  And for dessert.  And maybe for a snack in-between.  Ok, so maybe they won't last all week.  I impulsively sprinkled some nutmeg and cinnamon on top before baking, which gave them some nice color and a smidgen of extra flavor.

Here's to one last week of the Thankgiving "season", before diving into the next one.