Guidelines for Thanksgiving Dinner Conversations

In order to make the family holiday go a little more smoothly, I've created a list of acceptable and unacceptable topics of conversation for the Thanksgiving dinner table. Some of these are specific to my family, but these lists may serve as a guide for you to create your own handouts for the holiday.

Acceptable topics of conversation at Thanksgiving:

1. The weather. 

2. Amy’s new shoes. 

3. The awesomeness of John Lennon and Freddie Mercury (but only if Amy has had less than three drinks).

4. The parade.

5. Gargoyles

Taboo Topics for Thanksgiving Dinner

1. Your last doctor’s appointment (some of us will be eating, you know).

2. Any stories related to having your tires rotated (Dad — thanks, but we’ve got these memorized).

3. School grades. Anyone caught bragging about his or her grades will be publicly forced to eat the gizzards.

4. People who have not set the house on fire are not allowed to discuss the times those of us did so. However, people who have set the house on fire may discuss their respective events with one another at their own discretion.

5. Lucky Charms. Some of us were emotionally scarred by this cereal as a child.

6. The awesomeness of John Lennon and Freddie Mercury (but only if Amy has had more than three drinks — because then she’ll cry that they’re gone and nobody wants to deal with a weeping drunk sobbing face down in her mashed potatoes).

7. Politics.

I also welcome suggestions for additions. Please post your recommendations in the comments below. Thank you.

Mr Hankey Christmas Cookies (How to Make)

My kids are teenagers who love Southpark, so I started making these Christmas cookies last year and they’ve been a big hit with my kids as well as with a large number of my adult friends. They’re not difficult tot make, but they do take a little time, so here’s my little tutorial on how to make them. I’m posting written instructions and I also filmed some video so that you can see how I did it.

Step 1:
Bake brownies in a 13x9 pan. I recommend using a pre-packaged mix instead of baking these from scratch because you’ll spend enough time decorating the cookies and the mix speeds up this first step. Make sure that the box is “family sized” or large enough to accommodate a 13x9 pan. If the mix is for an 8x8 pan, then use two boxes.

Step 2:
Remove the edges from the brownies. This part is a little crusty and doesn’t mold as well as the interior. Mr. Hankey’s body forms better if you don’t use this. My kids love eating the scraps.

Step 3:
Cut the brownies into 12 equal parts. Each part will make one Mr. Hankey cookie, so you’ll wind up with a dozen cookies from one batch. I usually bake 2 13x9 pans and make 24 cookies at once. They get eaten pretty quickly.

Step 4:
Shape Mr Hankey. Make sure your hands are clean and then use them to mold his body into an irregular tube shape. I also slightly pinch a little area around where his neck should be to help him take shape.

Step 5:
Make his hat. This time I used pre-rolled sheets of red fondant icing. You can find this anywhere they sell cake decorating supplies (such as Michaels or Walmart). I’ve also either used cherry fruit roll-ups or painted his hat on with red icing. The red icing tastes the best.

Step 6:
Use pretzels and white chocolate to make his arms. Lay down some wax paper and then place drops of melted white chocolate down on the sheet. Place the end of  a pretzel stick on then seal the top of his “mitten” with another drop of white chocolate.

Step 7:
Use melted white chocolate to make two white ovals close together for his eyes.

Step 8:
Glue his hat on using either melted white chocolate or white icing. Once the hat is glued on you can decorate the “fur” parts using more melted whit chocolate or white icing.

Step 9:
Add a drop of dark chocolate to each of his eyes for the pupils, and also use the dark chocolate to make his mouth.

Step 10:
Gently insert his arms into the sides of his body. I usually break off one-third to one-half of the pretzel stick to shorten it and make it look proportional to his body.

Take a picture because these cookies won’t last long. Everyone loves the novelty and these disappear in less than 48 hours.

Watch the video also, - seeing how it’s done is often helpful to understanding it better. Besides, it took me hours to edit it and I’d like my efforts to feel validated.  ;)

Independence Day or Independence Week?

It’s Independence Day (July 4th) here in the United States. This is the holiday where we celebrate our freedom and the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  But I can’t help wondering how we can really feel free when most of us will be enslaved again tomorrow morning when we go back to work.  So I’m proposing that we make this holiday a week long festival.

Here’s why:

1.) Making this the only paid holiday that lasts a full week (the first week in July) will emphasize the importance of it.  Not to mention that people feel more free when they’re not thinking about going to work the next day.

2.) It gives us more time for parades and making homemade ice cream (it takes a long time to churn ice cream. A week of paid vacation should make that more feasible).

3.) Everyone knows that you can’t blow off fireworks without getting drunk first, so making this holiday a full week gives us more time for fireworks AND more time to sober up before going back to work. It’s a win-win situation!

If the government can’t give us a week of paid vacation for this, the least they can do is change the law so that it’s legal to set off fireworks when sober. Not that we’d follow it.