Happy Thanksgiving! (You know, if you celebrate it.)

Consider this a hangout thread. In the comments, feel free to share stories about how you’ll be spending the holiday. Did you make any special dishes? Are you doomed for any twelve hour drives? Gonna watch a big ass inflatable Power Ranger float over 34th Street? (Or… gulp… are you stuck working?)

Me, currently: It’s technically Thanksgiving, but really just late Wednesday night. We’re washing clothes, making stuffed mushrooms and trying to strategize the best way to hit two completely different family parties without missing the best aspects from either.

I’m taking a break for a cup of tea, which I don’t normally drink, and am only doing so because another cup of coffee will cause me to instantly drop dead. I hear Roseanne on in the other room — it’s the Thanksgiving episode, wherein Crystal and Ed lay the groundwork for their unlikely tryst. The air stinks of good food and tree-scented candles. I love all of this.

When I wake up, I’ll put on the parade and we’ll finish up the cooking. By this time tomorrow night, I’ll be plowed, enormous, and ready to live in a blanket fort for the remainder of my days.

Thanksgiving marks the true start of the holiday season. A time when we can find joy and purity in congested shopping malls. A time when a casual drives around the neighborhood make you way happier than is reasonable. A whole month of beautifully artificial niceties, gaudy decorations, sweaters, scarves and Snoopy. Yesssss.

Today, I’m thankful for you guys, who’ve justified my continued existence as a Forever Kid. And I’d like to think that we’ve all kind of been that together.

Have a wonderful holiday. Get drunk and say something stupid. Report back. Read More…

Ah, it’s that time of year again! Time to make funky appetizers from the 1960s!

As longtime readers know, I’m obsessed with old cookbooks. Specifically, cookbooks from that weird stretch of years when every other recipe called for unflavored gelatin. This obsession hits a fever pitch during the holiday season, because even if the cookbooks made no such claims, every appetizer in them sounds Christmassy to me.

After spending many years simply reading these ancient recipes, I’ve spent the last few years actively putting them to use. In 2012 and again in 2014, you’ve seen the results of these bizarre experiments. Some of the appetizers were doubtlessly in bad taste by today’s standards, but despite such reader responses as “no thanks” and “that’s literally shit,” most of them turned out better than they sounded.

Below are five more recipes for ancient holiday appetizers, predominantly plucked from the pages of hardbound Better Homes and Gardens books from the 1960s.

Thing to note: I’ve tried all of these, and ALL of them are good. I swear.

To be honest, I only made this Avocado-Cranberry Salad because it sounded like a good photo. Little did I know that the ridiculous components of avocado slices, cubes of cranberry sauce and goddamned french dressing would make for something that I’d make-and-eat even when there wasn’t a Dino Drac review on the line.

My description won’t be much help, but here it goes: It’s like the free salad course from a mid-level restaurant that desperately wants you to think it’s fancy. There’s a fine line between class and trash, and I’ve come to realize that pure nirvana exists squarely on that line. This salad is boss.

Start with a bed of lettuce. Add diced celery, avocado slices and chunks of jellied cranberry sauce. Drizzle with french dressing. The cookbook I got this from offered no photographic assistance, but the dish still looked like it belonged on its front cover. This is so ‘60s. Read More…

Did you know that He-Man and She-Ra appeared at the 1985 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade? It’s true! And I’ll be showing you the proof! Just you wait!

Masters of the Universe was on top of the world in 1985, so it made sense for He-Man to snag an appearance at the annual parade. Of course, where a giant Orko balloon might’ve sufficed, Mattel had much more ambitious ideas:

They were gonna stage a massive Eternian war across a giant, three-part float.

I’ve pulled the clip from my rapidly degrading old videocassette. If you’re not sitting down, you might want to:

WHAT A FLOAT. It was huge, awesome and utterly confusing. Covered with cumbersomely-costumed characters and representing three focal areas from Masters of the Universe lore, nobody could claim that Mattel scrimped on the production. If anything, they tried to do more than was humanly possible.

No matter how you slice it, this was the most badass thing a kid could see back in ’85. Let me walk you through the series of events, because no matter how many times you watch that clip, you’re gonna miss something… Read More…