We might change it up a bit next year, but for this year, it was the perfect transition from the old to the next.

We watched What About Bob? and Zootopia and random episodes of Frasier. We fed all the livestock twice and put up the Christmas tree (to be decorated tomorrow at breakfast) and played more games. (I won Citadel, not that that's important.)

I’m setting all the food out at 11 AM. We’re going to spend the day in our great room with a fire, movies, and family games. Everyone can help themselves to whatever they want to eat whenever they want to eat it, They can join in games and movies as they choose. They don’t have to wear shoes.

After Mom died, I fixed the same meal for all my people. We sat down and ate it. It took fifteen minutes and then everyone was done (after three full days of cooking). I retreated to the sofa and wept. It all felt false and awful and I couldn’t even say why.

So here’s what we’re doing this year.

Mom and Dad couldn’t imagine Thanksgiving without a formal sit-down meal in the underused great room, with silver and napkins, and a long pastoral prayer to start out, and all of the kids wearing shoes (that was always a tough one).

Aww, thanks!!

"Don’t make young people feel bad about their reading skills. Don’t sulk if they dislike your favourites. Never make reading feel like a test. Discuss a book with a child who is willing, but remember there are no wrong answers: everyone is entitled to their own response."

"Let them read about what interests them. The important thing is to engender a love of story and/or curiosity about information. The rest will follow.

"Books can be rewards but never punishments. Don’t confiscate technology to make a child read. Don’t insist they finish a book they don’t like...

Yeah, I don't disagree but I can't in good conscience vote for Jones now. Sometimes, yes, there's no good option.