1. Since my MIL doesn’t travel well anymore, most of the family came to our place for Thanksgiving this year. We have a perfectly sized family room to accommodate the whole crew, and we had a lovely day together. I smoked one of our turkeys (now my favorite way to prepare it), and the other one we baked and then crock-potted. Both were delectable.

2. All the menu items turned out great (especially the Polish potatoes) except my feeble attempt to replicate “Cope’s Corn,” a dried corn that happens to be a local holiday favorite. Our stores couldn’t get any in stock this year because of the economy. So, I got regular corn and dehydrated it, but something didn’t work right in the re-hydration process, and I had to throw it out. C’est la vie. Maybe next year the cans will be back on the shelf. (The corn isn’t that great; it’s just a delivery system for butter and brown sugar. It’s also a childhood memory, so it’s a necessity at Thanksgiving.)

3. I had my annual sob-fest in the parking lot a few days ago as I was loading Thanksgiving groceries into the car. I didn’t even see it coming this year. It just hit me, yet again, that I am blessed while too many people in this world are still hungry. I had an overwhelming sense that the Spirit was saying to me, “Remember the poor.” That’s a mega-theme in Scripture, so clearly it’s something perpetually on the heart of God. It should be perpetually on our hearts, too.

4. In between meals and family laughs, I was able to work through all the primary sources containing Greek, Hebrew, or Syriac words for “veil” or “curtain,” the cultic tapestry separating the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place in the Jewish temple, which is the focus of my second dissertation. I successfully made it through the Babylonian Talmud, so ancient Jewish Apocalyptic is the last block of texts to consider. That’s where things get weird. It’s not unlike the book of Revelation, an odd (to us) genre of literature that has its own set of rules for interpretation. 

5. Here’s a lament from this former newshound: The mainstream media has become the journalistic equivalent of professional wrestling—mildly entertaining in the campiest of ways, but only people with severe learning disabilities take it seriously. There’s no greater source of misinformation, disinformation, and polarization in this country than CNN and MSNBC. They’re both contemptible organizations that need to whither on the vine and become utterly irrelevant. ABC, CBS, and NBC are close behind. The NYT is beyond redemption. The View is hell on earth. FOX is less annoying to my taste, but they don’t cut it straight, either. I spent a couple decades lamenting the growing bias and spin of the media, but that turned out to be a big waste of time and energy. Now I just mock them whenever I can. The Babylon Bee has the right approach. Make fun of them every single day. They deserve it. (O.k., rant over.)

6. My daughter is two centimeters and counting. If Samuel doesn’t arrive in the next several days, she’ll be induced on Wednesday. Question: How am I supposed to read the Infancy Narrative on Christmas Day this year with a newborn in the room? That’s just a puddle waiting to happen. 

7. My son is in final preparations for his appearance in the Reading Civic Theatre’s production of Grease (December 10-12). It’s a fun musical, and I may or may not have been an Olivia Newton-John fan as a teenager.

Have a great weekend, everyone. And welcome to Advent.