By Cindy Hoedel
Knight Ridder Newspapers
(KRT)
With Thanksgiving fast approaching, important preparations are under way at my house.
Not the menu: I like to be inspired at the last minute, after reading all the magazines and the newspaper food section.
My only resolution on that front is to not get caught by a TV news crew the night before Thanksgiving hoisting a frozen Butterball out of a supermarket freezer, asking like a doofus, "Do you think this will thaw by morning?" It won't happen again. The trick is to avoid supermarkets that are close to TV stations.
The table is not set either. Some lovable but wacky hosts tell me they set their holiday table weeks in advance. They must not have children or pets in the house.
No, my early preparations are focused on atmosphere.
Firewood? Check.
Chemical-soaked pine cones that make the flames turn green and pink? On order. There's nothing like a crackling, bizarrely colored fire to bring back memories of my `60s childhood.
A clean house is mandatory, so I've scheduled a one-time visit from the first cleaning service that had an opening Thanksgiving week.
The right music puts me in a relaxed state of mind and makes everything run more smoothly. So I've given my son a list of tunes by Dean Martin, Soundgarden and the Partridge Family, among others, to procure electronically - legally, of course.
Another thing that puts me in a relaxed state of mind is a massage, so I've scheduled one during my lunch hour the day before Thanksgiving. And because looking good makes you feel good, I've made the following appointments for Turkey Week: facial, Saturday; pedicure, Monday; hair, Tuesday. This gives you more bang for your buck than a new outfit in my book.
For post-feast fun, I've started reserving movie videos from the library as good titles occur to me. But that's really a backup plan. The centerpiece of holiday entertainment at our house is the game table: When daylight-saving time ends, we set up a folding card table and chairs in a corner of the living room and leave them there till spring.
This year I solved the problem of inadequate game table lighting. After a quick analysis of the designated space - not enough room to swing a cat; no electrical box overhead; a single outlet low on the wall - I decided a floor lamp with a swing-out arm would be just the thing. I even measured how high the lower rim of the shade needed to be to not block anybody's view. Once I had settled on those parameters, finding the right lamp was a snap.
Now we're rounding up our favorite board games and card decks, dusting them off and stacking them in plain sight in open-fronted end tables. Bet they don't stay there till Thanksgiving.
© 2003, The Kansas City Star.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
