There are Christmas lights hanging now on Berea-Rose. Not many, for now, but enough to signal the fact that Thanksgiving is over. What a week. Don Vito sat by the fire, sipping a ghastly chablis and listening to WFAN... snoozing. Yep, it was exciting.

Of course, we ate a traditional meal (no turducken this year).

We also made some serious pumpkin pie -- the story of which is retold here as photo essay. Da Chimpz were on hand to, er, help. That little pumpkin never had a chance. And oh yeah: that's a gluten free pie crust I had to make. Because I have an auto-immune system that works like the Federal Reserve.

It snowed a bit on Friday morning (more excitement for Vito!) but that cleared up quickly. Alane hit the stores early and came back reporting weak crowds -- Northeast Ohio is about as economically backward as Michigan, so full-on commerce would be shocking anyway.

Steve, who blogs even less than I do these days, was apparently in Philadelphia for Thanksgiving but never got himself over to Tony Luke's for the cheese steak that defeated Bobby Flay. Alane had it, said it was good; Dan tried it, said it was mediocre. Steve could've broken the deadlock. Maybe next time.

Heh, it just hit seven o'clock. Which fills my dining room with a happy little Christmas jingle: Deck the Halls indeed. I love that clock.