{"id":884,"date":"2016-11-24T13:37:22","date_gmt":"2016-11-24T13:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=884"},"modified":"2016-11-24T13:37:22","modified_gmt":"2016-11-24T13:37:22","slug":"turkey-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=884","title":{"rendered":"Turkey Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, here it is time for my almost, sometimes annual Thanksgiving Day blog. Our house is usually unpredictable around the holidays \u2014 you never know who, or how many, may be here. Over the years, we\u2019ve had friends from various places around the world as well as local friends and, of course, relatives. This year seems to be the relative year. We\u2019re fortunate enough to have all our kids, grandkids and Chassie\u2019s mom, Roberta. Couldn\u2019t ask for a better group.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve had Thanksgiving in a lot of places, under a lot of trying circumstances and even since being married, Thanksgiving has often been a challenge. I think myself and Claire have only been apart on one Thanksgiving\u2026 I remember not having turkey that day but Claire did manage to have a turkey even though there was no power because of a typhoon. (That whole episode is maybe a subject for another blog.)<\/p>\n<p>We always have turkey at Thanksgiving \u2014 we have other things, but I don\u2019t ever remember having Thanksgiving at our house without turkey. It seems that turkey has become almost synonymous with Thanksgiving, but after doing my usual extensive research on the subject, it appears that turkey probably wasn\u2019t on the menu for the three-day feast between the pilgrims and members of the Wampanoag tribe, that is generally considered to be the first Thanksgiving\u2026. the meats mentioned were duck, venison and seafood \u2014 no turkey. However, in the Thanksgivings that followed, turkeys became popular because it was a readily available meal that could feed a large group of people. Turkeys were also more expendable than other choices \u2014 cows and hens were too useful to be eaten because they provided milk and eggs. Turkeys, on the other hand, were usually kept around farms to eat bugs and worms and plumped up enough by harvest time to make a good choice for a feast.<\/p>\n<p>So we should all be thankful all the time, but today is a good day to reflect on things that we should be especially thankful for \u2014 my list, in no particular order and far, far from complete\u2026.<br \/>\nOur children \u2014 and grandchildren<br \/>\nFamily and friends<br \/>\nHealth<br \/>\nWine<br \/>\nCheese<br \/>\nFreedom \u2014 despite politics and the entire election process we\u2019ve just gone through, I\u2019m thankful to be an American and living in the U.S.<br \/>\nToday \u2014 because it\u2019s another opportunity to do better and another chance to see what a great experience life really is\u2026.<br \/>\nSo Happy Thanksgiving to everyone \u2014 don\u2019t blink because it\u2019s beginning to look a lot like Christmas\u2026.<br \/>\n\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, here it is time for my almost, sometimes annual Thanksgiving Day blog. Our house is usually unpredictable around the holidays \u2014 you never know who, or how many, may be here. Over the years, we\u2019ve had friends from various &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=884\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=884"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":885,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884\/revisions\/885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}