The day has yet to make up its mind between cloudy and sunny. The official weather report is partly cloudy, but right now I’d say it is partly sunny. The air is chilly at 46° because of the strong wind. We are all inside the warm house lazily passing away the morning.

When I was a kid, I always liked this week with only a couple and a half days of school, and you couldn’t even count the half as we didn’t do school work but usually colored turkeys or made Thanksgiving cards. I raced home thrilled to be out of school.

I remember the giant turkey defrosting in the fridge. It took up half the space. Wednesday was pie day. We always had apple, lemon meringue and sometimes pumpkin or custard pies. My mother would make the dough and roll it out on the counter. I remember flour covered the counter. I remember how wonderful the kitchen smelled. I can see the apple pie crust with just the right amount of brown. The lemon meringue was tall, and it too had just the right amount of browning on the top crests. With the pieces of dough left over my mother made turds, my father’s name for the pastry. She’d cut a piece of dough, add cinnamon and sugar then roll the dough and bake it. We didn’t have to wait for Thanksgiving to eat it. It was a Wednesday treat.

In those days there were no shortcuts. My mother made everything. One of my favorites was creamed onions. I remember she peeled every small onion. Her stuffing was always rich with sage, with Bell’s seasoning. I still use Bell’s. It always reminds me of my mother. No Thanksgiving was complete without mashed potatoes. My mother used a hand masher. I watched. She worked hard to get rid of the lumps. She always added milk and lots of butter. We had carrots, canned peas and, for my father, canned asparagus. None of the rest of us ate it. The cranberry sauce was decorated, at least I thought so back then. I didn’t realize the decorations were ridges from the can. Her gravy was the stuff of legend. As we got older and our palates expanded, my mother added more vegetables. She made my aunt’s squash dish. It became my favorite vegetable. Sometimes we had turnip, green bean casserole, another Thanksgiving staple, and baked sweet potatoes.

I have always loved Thanksgiving. It is a celebration of family, of all of us sitting around the table together, passing the food, filling our plates and enjoying each other’s company. We just needed each other and a few pies.

When I woke up this morning, the day was lovely. The sun was bright and had that fall into winter sharpness. The sky was a deep blue. When I went out front to get the Sunday paper, I was surprised when the air felt chilly. It had appeared warmer through the window. Since then, though, clouds have taken over the sky and the world outside my window looks bleak. Showers are predicted for later. I’m thinking today is a perfect day to stay home, watch a movie and eat some popcorn, all the while staying cozy.

My dance card is empty today. Yesterday’s concert was wonderful, the last of bluegrass. Though it rained, we still had nearly a full house. The audience even stayed around for the full set.

Popcorn has always been a favorite treat. I remember my mother putting oil in a pot on the stove and adding a couple of test kernels. When they popped, she’d add the rest of the kernels, cover the pot and start shaking the pot on the burner. Shaking was essential as the bottom kernels would burn if you didn’t shake. She’d shake with one hand and hold the cover with the other hand to ensure no popped corn escaped. Every now and then she’d raise the cover to check on the corn, and popped corn would fly out of the pot. We’d chase the kernels down to eat them. We’d hang around in the kitchen listening to the popping sounds. When we heard fewer kernels, maybe one or two, we knew the corn was popped. My mother would empty the pot into a bowl and add melted butter and salt. She was quite generous with the butter, less so with the salt. My mother, to prevent arguments, would often divide the popcorn into smaller bowls, one for each of us.

I remember Jiffy Pop. It was a foil covered pan with the oil and kernels inside. It had a handle to hold on to while you shook the pan. I loved watching. As the kernels popped, the top expanded around and up. It sort of looked like a dome, like the capitol dome. After the popping stopped, you tore the top of the dome and ate the popcorn right from the pan, but, of course, not until after the melted butter had been added. You can still buy Jiffy Pop. Nothing about it has changed. Maybe it is time again to be entranced by the growing top of Jiffy Pop.