Every year I just try to get from the day before Thanksgiving to the day after New Year’s.

I kept trying to get a Thanksgiving blog up, and before I knew it, it was after New Years.  So this is a comprehensive blog of how I got through the holidays.

For many, many years Lynn has graciously opened up her home in New Hampshire to host Thanksgiving dinner for family and friends.  There’s usually between 15-20 people there each year, depending on other commitments, travel plans, health, etc.  As you can imagine, this is a huge undertaking, so in 2011 Sage and I offered to host in MA.  Unfortunately that would require lots of travel for everyone else except us, so that didn’t make any sense.  Finally I offered to do a lot of the cooking so that Lynn wouldn’t feel so overwhelmed with it all, but we could keep it in NH, and I thought it came out okay.  (Well, maybe I got stressed out a little bit, but who doesn’t during the holidays?)  So this year I offered up my services again, which Lynn happily agreed to accept.

In addition to the meal, I decided to liven things up with some other activities for the day.  As many of you know, 2012 saw me lose quite a bit of weight, and it also saw me getting into jogging.  (I don’t call it running, because what I do could never be called that.  Even calling it “jogging” feels a little optimistic.)  I did my first 5K in September that was held by our neighborhood in Natick, but I thought a Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot sounded like a fun idea as well.  And then finally, from all the trivia that Sage and I have been playing down the local pub, we thought it would be fun to put together a family pub trivia contest as well.  So to reiterate, for Thanksgiving Day I was going to:  Organize and cook most of the sides, plus a chocolate cream pie, for 18 people; organize AND RUN a 5K; and put on a trivia contest.  As a friend of mine said to me when I told him the plan, “You know, you’re supposed to RELAX on Thanksgiving, right?”  Not me!  So with that all in mind, I began my assault on Thanksgiving Day.

First up was to determine the menu.  Thankfully this wasn’t my first rodeo, and I’m well aware that plenty of guests love to help out and bring side dishes and desserts.  Also, Lynn is always nice enough to take care of the turkey, so it’s mostly the sides that I worked on.  I scheduled my soon-to-be-famous bagel stuffing (which I make mostly in the slow cooker with turkey broth; you can never fit enough stuffing in the bird to feed everyone); mashed potatoes; green bean casserole; cranberry sauce; gravy; and I’m sure 5 other things that I can’t remember.  Others brought dinner rolls, sweet potato casserole, cranberry-orange relish, and plenty of pies.  In addition to those pies, Sage always requests that I make a chocolate cream pie, from an America’s Test Kitchen recipe that really is the best thing you’ve ever tasted.  So my prep began the day before, as I got the pie done plus most of the prep work for the stuffing and other side dishes.

Thanksgiving morning we drove up early to Concord to get the slow cookers going and organize the Turkey Trot.  Thankfully the day turned out to be absolutely gorgeous: Beautiful sunny skies, and by the 11 am race time, it was somewhere near 50 degrees.  I was VERY pleasantly surprised at the turnout we had for the race. I thought we might get 4 or 5 of us to race up and down Appleton St., but we ended up with 9 runners, plus a few walkers!  The route was up and down Appleton St. twice, which according to my research was close enough to 3.1 miles to count as a 5K.  Everyone had a great time, and except for some nasty comments from some racers about the course layout (Appleton St. has its share of hills), I think everyone agreed it was a great idea and we should pencil it in for every year.

Stretching and organizing before the race begins

Nick comes in First Place, with Farley (the dog) not far behind.

Doug struggles to the finish line

Lauren comes to collect her prize

Everyone's a winner!

After the race and the prize giveaways (oh yes…there were prizes), I was back in the house to finish up final preparations for dinner.  And start on the Irish Whiskey.  (How else does one get through cooking a holiday meal?)  Everything came out pretty close to on time, and it all tasted fabulous, if I do say so myself.  After our dinner at around 3, (and after watching what seemed to be a never-ending football game), Sage and I got everyone organized for our Thanksgiving Trivia Contest.  It lasted longer than I had thought it would, but again everyone seemed to love it, and with more prizes to all the teams, everyone seemed to walk away happy.  The day degenerated into more football, more drink, more desserts, and more game playing.  So in short, a great time was had by all.

Everyone chills after dinner

The dessert table

And that brings me to the Christmas season, which was full of fun as well.  The past two years we haven’t traveled at all during the week between Christmas and New Years, but have taken the week off of work.  I’ve labeled these the “Doug Days of Christmas” on Facebook, so many of you have probably already heard all the lively stories already.  But here they are for those who aren’t tied to social media.

Day 1: December 21.  After working a full day, Sage and I started off our almost fortnight without work by going to our favorite local watering hole – Ziti’s, which also happens to be right next door to our house (and is pretty much the only restaurant we can walk to).  A few months ago Ziti’s put in a bar (beer and wine only), and it’s great to have a bar within walking distance. We’ve also gotten to know Mike the bartender a little, and found out he’s going to culinary school these days.  Since then I brought him some copies of Cook’s Illustrated and our special issues, which he seems to appreciate.  We had some great pasta, good wine, and it was a great start to the holidays.

Day 2: December 22.  With so much time off work, I had a lot of home projects I wanted to get done, and instead of procrastinating and putting them off, I jumped right in on my first day off.  I did a lot of cleaning in the basement and cleaned out my workshop, which always seems to accumulate junk during the year. We also went out to the movies to see Life of Pi.  I liked it, but I didn’t think it was great.  The 3D was spectacular in it, however, and it was well worth it to see it in the theater for that alone.

Day 3:  December 23.  Every year I try to make several batches of Christmas cookies, and since we’d be traveling up to New Hampshire the next day, the 23rd made the most sense to get them done.  I always make Mom’s spritz recipe, and do several colors and shapes (including my favorite tie-dyed spritz, which I end up doing with all the leftover colored dough at the end) to make a festive assortment.  Recently I’ve made a couple of other recipes that I got from Cook’s Country.  The first are Mint Choco-Evergreen cookies, which are 2 different cookies: A mint cookie that’s shaped like a tree; and that’s placed on top of a large chocolate cookie.  The two are then baked together.  The 2nd is a Coconut Snowdrop, which is 2 coconut flavored cookies with a layer of melted chocolate in between.  Both have been huge hits, and I’m really happy I’ve found these recipes.

Christmas cookies

Day 4: December 24.  On Christmas Eve we drove up to NH to the Pettengill’s house where we got together with Lynn, Roy, Sue, Charlie, Ashley and Nick for some appetizers and drink.  I made cocktail meatballs, which unfortunately didn’t come out great.  Nick and Ashley made Swedish glogg, a mix of wine and spices, warmed up on the stove that was delightful.  We also had shrimp, cheeses, and various other foods and drinks.  After dinner Lynn had made magic cranes for everyone, in which we all wrote a wish on the crane for the new year, and then we burned them in the wood stove. We (or at least I) found out this night that last year when we did this (which I completely forgot) Roy and Ashley both wrote the same wish – and it came true!  I’m sorry to say I can’t remember once again what I wrote for 2013, so maybe I should be taking this more seriously in the future, as it seems to work.

Day 5: December 25.  Christmas day dawned with a fresh dusting of snow – a Christmas miracle!  Over the past few years we’ve kept Christmas low key: no presents, but simply sharing stockings with everyone, and maybe a game or two for the family.  I love keeping it this way, as that means no crazy shopping in crowded malls that I detest.  After stockings Sage and I went for a nice hour long hike around the woods in the neighborhood in the freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.  Once back home we warmed up with hot drinks while Lynn made a lovely roast turkey for Christmas dinner.  A very relaxing afternoon led to a night of trying to watch Memento on the DVD player that obviously doesn’t work anymore, but Roy didn’t want to hear that.  We got halfway through the movie before it finally died out on us. Que sera sera.

Farley checks out his stocking Christmas morning

Day 6: December 26.  Boxing Day!  After breakfast me drove back home and I made sure that the first thing I did was to install my new bottle opener I received in my stocking.  Arsenal’s Boxing Day match with West Ham was postponed due to a Tube strike, so I was left to cook dinner and chill out.

My new bottle opener.

Day 7: December 27.  Halfway through the week, and I began hit a wall.  I kept thinking of all the things I should be doing, but not getting anything worthwhile done.  In a driving rain storm (at least it wasn’t snow), we did some errands, and then went to the movies to see Lincoln.  I really loved the movie, and while it’s quite talky and long, it never really bored me.  That night we decided to make Caribbean cocktails and watch dumb comedies.  That always helps turn around a boring day!

Day 8:  December 28.  The Hokies were playing in their bowl game this day at 5:30, and even though Virginia Tech had a really rough season (ending the regular season 6-6), I hadn’t given up on my team and was still hyped up for the game.  Whenever there’s a late afternoon/night game, I need to keep myself busy during the day as to not drive me nuts, and with the Hokies bowling, we decided to go bowling too. We hit our favorite local spot, Lanes and Games, and then had lunch at the Allston Diner after.  Once home I prepared some game time snacks by making a loaf of bread to go along with some jalapeno cheese dip and a six pack of Lagunitas Little’ Sumpin’ Ale.  Everything tasted great, and while the Russell Athletic Bowl was by far one of the worst games I’ve ever had to sit through, at least the Hokies beat Rutgers in OT to finish the season with a winning record.  Onward and upwards to the 2013 season!

Sage contemplates her next move

Day 9:  December 29.  I had plans for this day to head down to Connecticut to Foxwoods and play in 1 or 2 poker tournaments. Unfortunately an impending snow storm was looming, and I didn’t want to be trying to drive home from Foxwoods at night in 6” of snow on the ground, or worse be stuck at Foxwoods overnight.  So I played it cautiously (and a bit bitterly at the same time) and stayed home all day, where I hung out on in the basement watching football (both American and English), where Arsenal put 7 past Newcastle to score a big win.  We watched a lot of movies as well, including Arbitrage which was surprising smart and good.

Day 10: December 30.  So with the snow that fell, we figured why not make the best of it and head out with our snow shoes to our favorite place to go snowshoeing (at least, our favorite that’s close), the Mass Audobon at Broadmoor Center.  There are lots of great hiking trails here, and in the past we’ve seen lots of wildlife.  On this day, which was sunny, we saw plenty of deer and other animal tracks, but no actually wildlife sightings.  Even so, it was great to stretch our legs and break trail in the fresh snow.

Doug tries to cross the rickety bridge without falling in

Sage enjoys the snow and woods.

Day 11: December 31.  For New Years Eve we decided to get together with some friends of ours, David and Stephanie, and their daughter Rachel.  I used to work with David, and now he’s the main brains of our weekly trivia team that usually crushes the competition.  We headed over to their house to play some games, get tattoos, and watch Rachel dance to “Call Me Maybe”.  As with most New Years Eves, we were home and in bed by 11:00.

Getting a tattoo. I had no idea the needle was that painful!

Day 12: January 1.  The end of the Doug Days saw me sobbing uncontrollably into my beer mugs as I knew I’d have to go back to work the next day.  But there were lots of fun college football games on TV, Sage made her great Baked Ziti, and we toasted to a good 2013.

Postscript.  So a few days later on a Saturday morning, right around 9:30 am, Sage and I were sitting around watching TV and getting ready to head out to an early movie (Zero Dark Thirty, I believe) when Sage looks out the front window and says, “Someone just pulled into our driveway…and a cop is right behind him.”  I stood up to look out, and sure enough, a man in a black, medium-sized SUV was pulled right up our driveway, and a Natick police car had his lights on and was pulled up next to our driveway.  The policeman walked up to the car as the man got out of the SUV, and we could hear the cop saying, “Hands on your head!”  WHOA, this just got interesting!  As Sage watched I did what all people do these days when something exciting is happening – I took out my iPhone to start videotaping!  While the policeman was cuffing the perp (I love using that word!) and walking him to his cruiser, our neighbor Pam was walking out of her house with her dog Duncan and going into her car.  (When you watch the video below, you can sort of see her walking to her car, and my voiceover mentions Duncan as well, who is her dog.)

After the policeman had the man in the car, he came back to the car and got on his radio to call in some backup.  Pam had already driven away, and that was when I walked out of the house to the policeman to see what was going on.  Also, Sage had reminded me we were about to leave to go to the movies, and this guy’s car was smack in the middle of our driveway, blocking both our cars!  The policeman was really nice, and couldn’t help but break into a smile when he saw me and started explaining what happened.  He said he saw the car on a nearby street, and when he ran the plate he saw that the owner/driver had “several warrants” out on him, and he also had a suspended license.  When he put on his lights to pull him over, the guy tried to evade him, and apparently took a bad turn when went down our one-way road.  It seems when he saw the dead end he figured he’d park it in my driveway, maybe trying to pretend like he was just visiting or something.  I mentioned that we were leaving our house soon, and he said not to worry, that he’d move the car into the street and call a tow truck to come get it. Within 5 minutes 2 other cruisers had shown up, and it was all very exciting for 10 minutes or so.  Then they all left, and by the time we got back from the movies the car was towed away.

So then only a few days ago, we ran into Pam on our way home, and I had forgotten that we had never mentioned that day when the cops had arrested a guy in our driveway.  So she told us about what SHE thought happened that day, when she walked out and saw the car.  See, we ALSO have black medium-sized SUV, which looks similar to the BMW the perp was driving.  Anyway, all she saw that day was the BMW driving really fast into our driveway, the cop following, and she thought it was ME that was being arrested!  She said when she walked out of the house she kept her head down because if it was she didn’t want to be staring, etc.  It wasn’t until a few days later when she saw the story in the police blotter in the local paper that she saw it was someone else arrested, and then she said, “I was so relieved!”  I thought that was pretty funny, and completely believable as well.  I mean, we’re neighbors, but we’re not really friends at all, and if I found out that any of my neighbors had warrants and got arrested, I’d totally believe it.