A non-consumer Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is still the least commercial holiday, although the way that the rest of the weekend goes with its increasingly crazy Christmas shopping frenzy is so overpowering that possibly Thanksgiving is just being swallowed by Christmas.

But we still try to celebrate Thanksgiving first, and keep the shopping monster at bay.

We drove up to my mother's couple acres near the mountains, and talked to the turkeys that were deemed too small to harvest before the holiday.

Ever since my mother was a little girl it's been a family tradition to do a jigsaw puzzle on Thanksgiving. We pulled out an old jigsaw puzzle I remembered from when I was a little kid, a cool one with small pieces and big pieces so it presents the right challenge level for the whole family. Only now it's my kids doing the easy part, and me doing the hard part.

My brother and sister-in-law hosted the dinner, with the turkey being one they had raised and killed and cleaned and cooked themselves.

One of the fun things at my brother's house is their pet pig, Blanche.

We stayed over at my mother's, and today (instead of the crazy Black Friday sales) we headed just a short way up the road to a hiking trail. Getting the family out into the forest seemed like just the right compliment to a day of celebrating our gratitude, and the antidote to the culture of consumer excess that we don't want to join.