thanksgiving – Mommy Perfect

Happy Thanksgiving

Published Thursday, November 26th, 2015

Mommy Perfect wants to wish those of you in the United States of America a Happy Thanksgiving. The first nation in history to set aside a day just to be grateful. Gratitude, after all, is essential to happiness (the pursuit of happiness being a unique founding principal of America).

So many of us in the modern western world live a life so comfortable (relative to other nations) that we may tend to believe that “life owes us”; owes us a living, owes us happiness, owes us good fortune. None of that is true, of course. We are not entitled to anything other than the equal opportunity to pursue our life as we wish to live it (so long as we do no harm to others). That does not mean that we are guaranteed happiness, only the ability to pursue it.

Its good for our minds and our souls to take stock of what we have to be grateful for. Here is an old video from the 1950s that shares some of these same ideas. Before you get all caught up in watching department store parades, football games, preparing or eating a feast, please give this short video a watch and see what you think about its message. (The acting and production quality is a bit low, but look beyond that.) Notice that even in the 50s — the “glorious and idyllic 50s” — Americans had similar vain emphasis on materialism as we do today, and financial or familial struggles are not new either.

Share this with your friends and family and let us know in the comments below what you are thankful for. Enjoy!

Its Wrong to Shop on Thanksgiving Day

Published Sunday, November 22nd, 2015

If you’re one of those people who plans to go shopping on Thanksgiving Day, I want you to reconsider. This is a relatively new “tradition” in America, and its not a positive one. The entire point of Thanksgiving is being undermined by the retailers and consumers who participate in this obnoxious activity of Christmas shopping on Thanksgiving Day.

Thanksgiving is a unique holiday that draws from American’s historic sense of gratitude for our many blessings. Whether you believe that America’s success comes from a God, divine providence, evil imperialists, or dumb luck, we have it good in America (and Canada, who celebrates Thanksgiving in mid-October) and that deserves to be observed for at least one day of the year. Gratitude is the salient point. Grateful people are happier than the ungrateful, and happier people make the world a better place.

Thanksgiving has been a national holiday since 1863. Ever since the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade began in 1924, the Friday after Thanksgiving has been known as the start of the Christmas season — even the television networks wouldn’t begin playing Christmas specials before Thanksgiving. Police began to complain about the traffic congestion on the day after Thanksgiving and so the distinctly negative word “Black Friday” was used. Retailers soon realized that they could draw crowds to their stores by offering sales, and Black Friday became “the day” to begin shopping for Christmas. But retailers respected the holiday and stayed closed on Thanksgiving.

Around the year 2000 the internet was peeling off enough sales from retailers that they pushed back by offering door busters early on the morning of Black Friday. They offered severely discounted items, like popular electronics, to the first few people in the door — everybody after them would pay the “normal” sale price, which typically is not an impressive discount. Its a marketing trick called a loss-leader to get people in their store. People began camping outside the store on Thanksgiving night, or even days in advance, in order to get the loss-leader. Eventually the opening hours creeped earlier and earlier, until just a few years ago some retailers began to open on Thanksgiving day. Once one store did it, their competitors followed their lead.

This is a culturally negative trend. Its obnoxious for retailers to make these demands of their employees. You can shop all year; to take one day and spend it with your family is important and should not be so easily dismissed. Employees don’t want to work on Thanksgiving, but they cannot defy their employer and risk losing their jobs, so they do as they are told. They don’t have the luxury of telling their boss to “shove it” right before Christmas.

There will always be a few people who don’t care about American traditions and will pursue door buster sales no matter when they are held. Retailers could simply revert back to Black Friday to hold their big sales and that’s when shoppers would arrive, but by opening on Thanksgiving it forces low income shoppers, who would otherwise say home at that time, to seek out the discounts. Its a vicious cycle of retailers chasing other retailers, shoppers chasing other shoppers, until now you have K-Mart opening at the depressingly early hour of 6:00 am on Thanksgiving morning and staying open for the ensuing 42 hours straight! It’s disrespectful to their employees and to our American culture.

Fortunately there has been positive push-back from consumers. Surveys show that 60% of Americans hate that stores open on Thanksgiving. As many as two dozen major chains and department stores have heard the message and are now actively promoting that they are staying closed on Thanksgiving. A “Boycott Black Thursday” Facebook page exists now to promote this cause.

Ultimately its you and I, the consumers, who will decide if this ugly trend continues, or dies off as it should. As a culture we should decide where our priorities lie, and individually we can vote with our wallets and our feet by staying home on Thanksgiving, and patronizing the stores who respect one of our most important holidays.

The Importance of Holiday Traditions

Published Sunday, November 22nd, 2015

I want to encourage you to understand and embrace the importance of holiday traditions. Tradition is remarkably important, especially for children. Some people may scoff or roll their eyes at traditional activities — teens and college kids especially — but I would say that view is shallow and should be disregarded as naïveté. Some traditions may seem silly, and in fact some may be legitimately silly, but to focus on their “silliness” is to miss the whole point of doing the activity.

What Are Traditions?
Simply put, traditions are activities or rituals that are done routinely and for a long enough time that they become a set norm. Without ritual, holidays lose their meaning. Not “ritualistic” like a coven killing small animals on midsummer nights eve — just anything simple or complex, that becomes part of a pattern. Fireworks on Independence Day, turkey on Thanksgiving, stockings at Christmas, to name a few common ones.

A Family Is More Than Your Genes
When I was a young girl I had neighbor, a sweet old lady named Margaret, who was born before the Great Depression. She was abandoned by her biological family when she was very young — this was common during the Depression because parents simply could not support their children. She had no memories of her biological family, but was raised by adoptive parents. All of the customs and traditions that she knew came from her adoptive family; her sense of connectedness and belonging, the very essence of what made Margaret a part of her new family, came from the activities they did together. A family is a social group, not a shared gene pool.

Like the grooves worn into Roman stone roads, traditions endure for generations. Margaret inherited her genes from her biological parents, but her traditions came from her adoptive ones, and that is what she passed on to her children. Family traditions are a social link to those who came before you. Some traditions, especially religious ones, have been practiced the same way for thousands of years. When you engage in those activities, you acknowledge and connect to those people who are with you today, those who have come before you — it’s truly a link to the past.

Embrace Tradition
Activities that are done together as a familial group, especially on holidays, become ingrained in the minds of children (and adults too) and create a sense of enduring solidarity. Even angst-filled teenagers, with more sense of independence than wits, will look back fondly at family traditions when they are mature enough to appreciate them.

All cultures develop their own traditions over time, evolving much like genes, incorporating new traits from outside influences or generating newly from whole cloth. Most holiday traditions in North America have roots in Europe, but many developed newly right here. Trick-or-treating has its origins in Ireland, but America took that custom and made it an entirely new thing. Mailing Christmas cards, wrapping gifts in colorful paper, and eating cranberry sauce at holiday feasts, are a few traditions that were invented right here in America. So too can individual families evolve or even develop their own holiday traditions.

Don’t Miss the Forest for the Trees
Perhaps you’ve gotten away from traditional activities; try thinking back to when you were young and ask yourself what things you used to do on certain special occasions. Maybe every News Years Eve your family used to get Chinese food, or perhaps there’s a religious observance that you used to practice when you were young. I must emphasize that participating in religious traditions do not require that you have faith or belief in them. The purpose here is to embrace and connect with family, past and present. An atheist or agnostic can joyfully sing Christmas carols without having to extol the Christ Child and without sarcastically chiding his relations that Jesus most likely was not born on December 25.

My family has a Scottish tradition on New Years Day called “First-Foot“, where the first person to enter your home on the new year must be bearing gifts of bread, salt, and whiskey. It’s for good luck. We are not superstitious, we don’t believe in luck, but its fun! It’s been done by my family for a thousand years or more. We gather up some bread, salt, and scotch, and go visit relatives on New Years morning. We gain far more benefit from practicing this ancient (and somewhat silly) tradition than from any insignificantly minor offense from my lack of sincere belief in the custom. As the old saw goes, “Don’t miss the forest for the trees.”

Traditions New and Old
Twenty-five years ago my husband began running in a local Thanksgiving Day 5K “fun run”. When I married him, this was entirely new to me, but now I’ve embraced it. We wake up at 5:30am on Thanksgiving morning, drive to the next town over, and run a 5K race at dawn in the freezing cold air with thousands of strangers. It sounds like lunacy, but I love it. When the kids were younger I pushed them in a stroller, now they run along with us. Its become a tradition.

We’re all familiar with traditional holiday foods, like turkey and pumpkin pie, but my family has a traditional holiday dish from Scotland called bread sauce which we always eat with turkey, and now my husband and my kids know it as tradition too. Embrace older traditional dishes and incorporate new ones too.

Here is a list of traditions, old and new, to consider for the major holidays.
Easter: color eggs with the kids; hide the eggs for the kids to find; leave a basket of candies or chocolate bunny by their bed overnight from the Easter Bunny; buy an Easter lily for your home; have a family Easter feast.
Independence Day: Barbecue; party games; do a July 4th ritual; fireworks (safely)
Halloween: make or buy a costume; visit a pumpkin patch; carve jack-o-lanterns; host a Halloween party; trick-or-treating; watch Halloween specials.
Thanksgiving: run in a local race; watch Macy’s Parade; watch football; read aloud William Bradford’s original Thanksgiving Day prayer or George Washington’s Thanksgiving Day proclamation; family feast; watch the first Christmas special of the year after dinner.
Christmas: Advent calendar starting Dec 1; send Christmas cards to friends and relatives; pictures with Santa; decorate Christmas tree; decorate the outside of your house; sing Christmas carols; bake cookies and fruitcakes; hang mistletoe; Christmas Eve service at a local church; read “The Night Before Christmas” before bed on Christmas Eve; stocking hung up on Christmas Eve; leave cookies and milk for Santa; Santa always leaves a tangerine in the stockings; prepare a special Christmas breakfast; Christmas crackers at the feast; make wassail. Here is also a list of family Christmas outings to do throughout December.
New Years Eve/Day: go out to dinner; stay up until midnight; shoot fireworks at midnight; first-foot; resolutions; watch Rose Parade on TV; polar bear swim (jump into a frozen body of water); family feast.

If you haven’t already given it thought, I would urge you to consider without prejudice what traditions you want to adopt, practice, and pass along to your kids. Disregard the insignificant social stigma this may elicit from your peers or associates for participating in “old-fashioned” or “archaic” rituals. Your family will be better off if you start now, and your children will appreciate it.

Ginger Cranberry Sauce

Published Wednesday, November 18th, 2015

This is the most delicious cranberry sauce I’ve ever tasted. Sweetened with honey, with mild ginger and orange accents, it’s the best. Be sure to cook this up at least a day before your feast.

Some interesting facts about cranberries:

The cranberry got its name from European settlers who thought the blooming flower resembled a crane, hence craneberry. In parts of Canada they are called mossberry; in England fenberry.
Native American Indians did eat cranberries, although there are no records to indicate that they were served at the Pilgrim’s first Thanksgiving in 1621.
The earliest recorded reference to cranberry juice was in cookbook from 1683.
The earliest recorded reference to cranberry sauce was during the American Civil War, being served to the troops in 1864.
Cranberry sauce in Europe is often served sour, whereas in North America it’s highly sweetened.
Rumors persist that cranberries are one of only three fruits native to North America. This is false. In addition to cranberries there are at least 36 fruits native to North America.
Cranberries can help to prevent urinary tract infections (UTI), although researchers aren’t precisely sure how it works.

Although Ginger Cranberry Sauce has no added sugar, it is not a low-calorie recipe.

Butternut Galliano

Published Monday, November 2nd, 2015

This is a delicious dish for holiday meals to serve along side a turkey or ham. Galliano is the “secret” ingredient that provides deep layers of flavor to the butternut squash and will have your guests begging for your recipe. Galliano is an award winning sweet Italian liqueur, infused with natural spices and herbs, that provides complementary flavors to winter squash dishes and soups. In some parts of the world butternut squash is also known as butternut pumpkin. Galliano makes several different flavors of liqueur, but we are using the original flavor.

Butternut squashes do vary in size. This recipe was designed for a large butternut yielding approximately 4 cups of cooked squash, so adjust recipe or cook two smaller squashes, as needed.

A simpler method for cooking the squash, using a slow-cooker:

Wash the outside of the squash.
Place whole inside your Crockpot. No cutting or dicing.
Add 1/2 inch of water to the Crockpot vessel.
Cook on HIGH for 5 hours, or LOW for 8 hours, or until tender.
Remove with tongs and place on a cutting board.
Cut lengthwise down the middle.
Using a spoon or an ice scream scoop, remove the seeds and stringy bits — discard.
Carefully scoop out the tender flesh of the squash, leaving the skin.
Prepare as above.

Traditional Scottish Bread Sauce

Published Sunday, November 1st, 2015

“The whole point of roast turkey is the bread sauce.” –Great-grandma Fraser

In North America bread sauce is virtually unknown, which is unusual because so many of our American and Canadian customs — especially holiday customs — came from Britain. Bread sauce is one of the oldest British sauces, with records of it going back to medieval times, and is the only surviving bread-thickened sauce from that epoch. Its an important part of a traditional British Christmas dinner to accompany roast poultry.

Bread sauce is a savory sauce with a very unique flavor, unlike anything you’ve tasted before. Its excellent with turkey or any fowl, but accompanies well with beef, lamb, or fish. It should be served up similarly to how we traditionally serve cranberry sauce: a dab along side your meat. You can also “butter” your bread with it when making a turkey sandwich from leftovers. Can be served cold, but I prefer it warm.

My family’s recipe came over with them from Scotland more than a century ago and has been served with every Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner in living memory. Bread sauce is easy to make and is a crowd-pleasing extra for the holidays or for any special gathering. It also freezes well, so can be made up to a month is advance.

I like what Mrs. Leyel and Miss Hartley have to say about bread sauce from their famous cookbook The Gentle Art of Cookery (1925): “This is one of the sauces we make better in England than in France, for the French don’t make bread sauce at all — a great mistake on their part, for properly made it is excellent, not only with birds but with many kinds of fish.”

Try it this holiday season and let us know what you think about it in the comments section below.

Holiday Diet: How To Enjoy The Holidays While Dieting

Published Tuesday, October 13th, 2015

When the weather starts getting cooler in Autumn and the “Pumpkin Spice” flavored goodies appear wherever you look, most people who had been successful with their eating habits up until now will suddenly begin cheating too often and losing their hard-earned gains. Halloween candy, family feasts, pie, gravy, egg nog, fruitcake, cookies, chocolates… the last three months of every year! We all find our will-power being tested at holidays, and for many people who are trying to pursue body or fitness goals, this time of year mark the end of their healthy diet – they give up entirely and revert to horrible eating habits until New Year’s rolls around again, then the cycle starts over.

Anybody who tells you that its easy is lying to you. If it were easy then everybody would be in great shape. As a former athlete and fitness professional, I’ve spent years seeing how people struggle this time of year — including myself — and I’ve learned some valuable lessons to help navigate the holidays without blowing up your diet.

Why do we crave fats and sugars?
How to use “cheat meals” to keep you ON your diet without feeling guilty.
Is gluten the real reason that you struggle to get trim? Or is it sugar? Or pesticides? Or something else?
What should you do if you give in to temptation?
Should you be eating low-fat or low-carb?

I’ve writen a new book called “The Holiday Dieting Handbook”, available at Amazon, which answers these questions and many more. Full of delicious holiday recipes that won’t compromise your diet or make you feel like you’re missing out. These are all-original recipes that aren’t on my website or anywhere else.

Want to know what the biggest lie in the fitness industry is? Here is an excerpt from the book:

Competitive athletes and bodybuilders have known for decades that the best way to get protein is to eat food; not protein powders or bars. Even though they all sell powders and bars, they rarely eat the stuff. The powder business is hugely profitable, and so they all try to sell the public on the myth that you can drink this expensive powder and look just like them. Meanwhile they almost never touch the stuff. Powders are highly processed waste byproduct of food manufacturing (mostly from dairy processing). They used to throw the stuff away, then someone got the idea to sell it. Through fancy packaging, attractive models, and a lot of misleading (or outright false) advertising, a multi-billion dollar business has sold a naïve public that they need powdered protein to get fit. I could write an entire book about all the fraud that goes on in the supplement business, but suffice for now that powders and bars should be your last option, not your first. These overpriced powders do have their place as an occasional meal replacement when you’re in a pinch and have no other choice, such as an airline flight, a long meeting, and when added to certain recipes. The pros do use powders in this limited way as well. Just remember: powders are a food of last resort.

The Holiday Dieting Handbook is available now at Amazon for $1.99 digital download (free with Kindle Unlimited). I hope it helps you to make it to New Years with your diet intact!

The Best Family Halloween and Thanksgiving Movies

Published Thursday, October 8th, 2015

One of our favorite holiday traditions as a family is when we get to pull out the seasonal movies (and books) from storage and enjoy some classic programming together. When I was a kid (and perhaps many of my readers as well) the only time we got to watch a holiday special was the one night when they played it on TV. Obviously kids today can watch them limitless, so we at least put them away once the holiday is over to give these specials the feeling of actually being “special”.

Here is a list of the best Halloween and Thanksgiving movies and specials that you can watch as a family. No horror or blatant adult themes. If you don’t already have all of these, each title below is a link that will show you where you get get a copy for yourself.

Let us know in the comments below which ones your family enjoys most.

Family Halloween Specials

Its The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966)
The Peanuts gang celebrates Halloween, with Linus hoping that, finally he will be visited by The Great Pumpkin; while Charlie Brown is invited to a Halloween party. This fits the truest definition of a classic: its as enjoyable for kids of today as it was in 1966 when it was first released. All ages.

The Aventures of Ichabod (aka The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) (1949)
A retelling of Washington Irving’s story. Ichabod Crane, the new schoolmaster, falls for the town beauty, Katrina Van Tassel, and the town Bully, Brom Bones, decides that he is a little too successful and needs “convincing” that Katrina is not for him. Bing Crosby lends his pipes to this Walt Disney masterpiece in a unique format as storyteller and singer. This was originally released as a double-feature, so the first half of the movie is “Mr. Toad/The Wind In The Willows”. Skip past that to get to the Ichabod feature. May be frightening for children under 5.

Ghost Busters (1984)
Three odd-ball unemployed scientists setup shop catching ghosts in New York City and end up stumbling upon a gateway to another dimension. This 80s comedy adventure still entertains adults and children alike. May be frightening for children under 10.

Coraline (2009)
An adventurous girl finds a doorway to another world that is a strangely idealized version of her frustrating home, but it has sinister secrets. This claymation rendition of Neil Gaiman’s book of the same name is visually tantalizing and surprisingly creepy, even for adults. May be frightening for children under 9.

Hocus Pocus (1993)
After three centuries, three witch sisters are resurrected in Salem Massachusetts on Halloween night, and it is up to two teen-agers, a young girl, and an immortal cat to put an end to the witches’ reign of terror once and for all. May be frightening for children under 8.

Halloweentown (1998)
The Cromwell clan split their time between the real world and “Halloweentown”, but the son of an old rival threatens to make the latter “real” and the real world a place of monsters. May be frightening for children under 7.

Trick or Treat – Donald Duck (1952)
After Donald Duck plays a cruel Halloween prank on his nephews, the 3 team-up with a witch and her broom to teach him a lesson about ‘tricks and treats.’ This short cartoon is only runs 8 minutes, but its become a traditional family Halloween special for several generations. Unfortunately the Disney Company has not released it for sale, but its available for viewing on YouTube. All ages.

Flying Sorceress – Tom and Jerry (1956)
Tom gets a job being a witch’s cat and has a frightening ride on her broomstick. Another animated classic like Trick or Treat (above), this 6 minute short is available on the Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection DVD. All ages.

Halloween also mentions, for the wee little ones…

The above list is easily enjoyable for children and adults of all ages. Here is a list especially for the little kids, which adults may not want to sit through.

Curious George: A Halloween Boo Fest (2013)
Halloween is almost here and George can’t wait for the festivities to begin: carving pumpkins, costume contests, and especially the Annual Boo Festival. All ages.

Berenstain Bears: Halloween Treats (2009)
The furry clan returns with jack-o’-lantern adventures that will make your bones tingle with fright and delight! All ages.

Thomas and Friends: Halloween Adventures (2009)
Celebrate Halloween with Thomas and his friends…tricks and treats abound! All ages.

Family Thanksgiving Specials

There are much fewer Thanksgiving specials available. I suppose Hollywood just hasn’t managed to make this holiday entertaining, which is kind of a shame because I personally really love Thanksgiving. Here are the best ones that we like to watch.

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973)
Peppermint Patty invites herself and her friends over to Charlie Brown’s for Thanksgiving, and with the help of Linus, Snoopy, and Woodstock, he attempts to throw together a Thanksgiving dinner for the gang. All ages.

This is America Charlie Brown – The Mayflower Voyagers (1988)
The Peanuts Gang reinacts the Mayflower Voyage in an historical context. This is available on the same disc as A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (above). All ages.

The Little Orphan – Tom and Jerry (1949)
The orphan mouse, Nibbles, spends Thanksgiving with Jerry, but Jerry’s cupboard is bare. The mice partake of Mammy’s Thanksgiving feast while Tom tries to catch them. This 8 minute animated short won an Academy Award that year. All ages.

Holiday Inn (1942)
At an inn which is only open on holidays, a crooner and a dancer vie for the affections of a beautiful young performer. Although this is often lumped in with Christmas movies, it spans all the holidays of the year, and includes a Thanksgiving segment. Stars Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. This is the movie that the song White Christmas was written for. (Fun fact: White Christmas is the best selling song of all time.) All ages, although young kids may find it boring.

What are your favorite holiday specials? Did I miss any? Leave a comment below!

Related: Mommy Perfect’s list of The Best Family Christmas Movies

Disclaimer: this article may contain affiliate links.