It isn’t yet the proverbial crack of dawn and here I am wide-eyed and bushy-tailed (clichés must be an early morning phenomenon). I blame it on the turkey and all the fixings. When I got home after dinner, I was filled to the gills (oops, another one) and so sleepy I went to bed before 9.

Dinner was spectacular and the table, filled with food, groaned under the weight of green bean casserole, stuffing, squash, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, grandma’s cole slaw and the star of the day, the turkey. We sat and ate for the longest time. Conversation was at a minimum. Mostly it was requests for one dish or another to be passed. Romper Room’s Miss Jean would have made all of us members of the clean plate club. After dinner, we waddled into the living room and watched TV hoping dinner would settle enough so we could have pie. We all managed. There’s always room for pie. The dinner was an unqualified success!

I can’t imagine dragging myself out of bed to get dressed and go shopping. The lead story on the 5 o’clock news was about the long lines of people waiting in the cold for stores to open. I got to hear one woman describe the toy she was buying. News must have been really scarce this morning.

Gracie is asleep and snoring beside me on the couch. Fern is asleep behind me on the back couch cushion. I have no idea where Maddie is but I figure she is probably sleeping upstairs. I am the only one awake. The TV is on, and I am immersed in black and white. I’ve watched Wanted Dead or Alive and My Three Sons and am now watching Petticoat Junction. Wanted Dead or Alive had Santa Claus, the real one. He was in the house pretending to be someone else and on Christmas morning he had disappeared. The doors were still locked on the inside, and there were no footprints, but there was a bell in the fireplace. On Petticoat they are decorating for Christmas, including the Cannonball and a cow with a bow on her head and a gift tag around her neck. I used to watch that show all the time. It is just awful, and I never noticed.

The Beverly Hillbillies are on, and I’d hate to miss them. I sang along with the theme song and remembered every word. The Clampetts  are returning home to the mountains for Christmas, “Happy as a pack of squirrels returning to their nest.”