69 thoughts on “November 10, 2020: Thanks, Not Going”

  1. Our house has talked about this (Thanksgiving). There's just nowhere to go that feels OK. We haven't officially decided that we're staying home, but we aren't seeing lots of good alternative options.

  2. For over 30 years we've shared Thanksgiving with another family here, since our own families don't live near us. It was convenient to share the cooking duties, and to alternate homes each year. This year...no. Honeybaked Ham will be prepping our turkey and sides (we'll still make the pies) and we'll have to Zoom or something. Not even Runner daughter is joining us, as she'll be in isolation following her vacation with her boyfriend to Steamboat Springs (in which she'll be distancing as much as possible).

  3. We are splitting up families for Thanksgiving. Me and my son will go to my parents. My sister will have her daughter/SiL and her other daughter will be on their own. Typically we are all together.

    1. Oh and my son will get tested before we get together too. If my parents get cold feet, then I'll probably have him over for a small Turkey.

      I am not sure what will happen for Christmas. That's going to be the real test for avoiding gatherings.

  4. The decision was kind of made for us. Mrs. A is scheduled for knee replacement surgery on the 30th, and the doctor wants her to quarantine for a week prior. It would make no sense for her to quarantine and not me, so we will both be doing so and will celebrate Thanksgiving together at home.

  5. My parents already said no Thanksgiving gathering at their place this year which I am totally fine with. Going to make some tacos and watch football and facetime the fam.

  6. We're driving to New Orleans. I can't say I'm particularly excited about it, but we haven't seen any of Sheenie's family outside of Zoom in ten months (we have a nephew we've met once, yet he's already running around). We are now completely in quarantine until we leave (and everyone is doing the same down there). Also, getting tested on Monday just in case, so I suppose the whole thing would be called off if one of us tests positive.

    2. You might not be excited about it but I sure as heck am! I’ve been dreaming of a wild rice brat ever since you offered to swing by Schmidt’s.

  7. My sister in Bismarck is going to her in-laws. Her FIL is a retired doctor and said they shouldn't get together for Thanksgiving. His wife said that he can get a hotel room, she's having Thanksgiving with the kids.

    In my immediate family, I'll be the only one going to my parents' place since I've been isolating - everyone else is either exposed at work or through school children.

  8. Thanksgiving is possibly the holiday that most embodies my family's motto of "There's always room for more." It's usually most of my immediate family (Mom, Dad, 13 children, 7 spouses, 24 grandchildren), plus some various relatives, and then plus some random co-workers, friends from college, foreign exchange students, siblings' in-laws, or whatever. Basically, we keep the holiday to a small 50 people or so.

    Obviously that won't be happening this year. My Mom started planning for a pared down version with the more local families, but over the last few days they all decided that probably wasn't a good idea either.

    Now I'm working on coordinating something with my in-laws since we're basically one household already, and we might have a small number of quarantined in-laws join us. It's been 10 years since I've done a turkey, so I'm kind of looking forward to it again.

  9. On my wife's side, we host Thanksgiving every other year. We made the call a while ago that we don't feel comfortable doing so. My father in law is not healthy and a brother in law has diabetes. We will sit this one out.

    A follow up on the joint. 1 confirmed case (cook who had very little contact with anyone on the one day we worked last week), one server with emerging symptoms (who worked a lot over the weekend) and 2 hosts who called yesterday that they are quarantining due to potential exposure at the local tech college. It takes a while to do proper contact tracing, so that, coupled with the worry that more staff may start displaying symptoms, made me not feel comfortable staying open this week.

    As a result, we are closed completely, at least, through Wednesday. I might open over the weekend for take out only. Probably won't relaunch inside dining until next week. A guy has to be able to look in the mirror each morning. I am not angry, mad, upset, stressed or freaked out. We have had a plan in place for a while now and we are just following the plan. We banked up some cash over the summer in order to survive a few of these bumps in the road this winter.

    The one employee just has mild symptoms and the positive test was asymptomatic. So, no really worries on individual health at this point.

    One positive... I can get some bookwork and long range planning done.

    1. I guess the good news is that no one was hiding their symptoms or positive status from you; that's where the real problems happen.

      One of my nieces and her husband and infant tested positive last week; his boss's husband passed it along with no warning, but while five nursing home staff ended up positive, no residents there did.

  10. We normally visit my wife's family in St. Louis. However, her sister has decided to only have immediate family. So we're doing our own thing with her other sister, mom, my mom, and some family friends. We have not been terribly shy about getting together with others. Our whole house has had it at one point. And we've already been with all of the people at some point over the last month.

    1. maybe needs a bit of crunch in there: pickled onions, slices of cucumber, or summat? Still, a solid, everyday sammich. Respect.

          1. peppers. brine. mason jar. some sort of weight to keep the peppers submerged in the brine. time in a cool location.

                  1. There was an extensive kraut kick going on here for a while. Hell, even I bought one of those things. I did use it once.

                  2. I’m quite happy with it. I’ve made probably 10 or so jars of pickled things with it over the past 6 months, and have no complaints.

  12. Folks who live in the Twin Cities, I am looking for pizza recommendations in the northern suburbs. It seems like we have never found a place that is high-quality 100% of the time. Papa Murphy's comes the closest. Frankie's, Angeno's, and Broadway are hit and miss. Jet's Pizza has an excellent deep dish but it's also a grease bomb and am not always in the mood. At this point I'm no more confident in the quality of the pizza around here any more than Domino's.

    1. Pizza Flame in Coon Rapids is good, family joint that’s been around more than 40 years. Mansettis is real similar, they have a few locations, we go to the one in Anoka.

      1. I've had multiple siblings work at Pizza Flame! They had very frustrating employment experiences... I always liked the joint though. Also, I'm guessing Beau knows about Pizza Flame already...

        1. Yes, they are consistently awesome. A bit far for us for pick-up, but may be worth it sometimes. It's amazing how consistently good their pizza is despite the staff/management issues

          1. You ever try Rosati’s or Pieology?
            Let me know if you do. I realize this is not a particularly helpful comment.
            Ooo...when wife wants something easy but niceish, we get the 2-Pizza Pronto Pack at Biaggi’s. $30 for couple pizzas, sizable salad and bread. Maybe not exactly what you’re looking for, but an option.

            1. We tried Rosati's once. I remember thinking it was decent, but it didn't blow me away. Haven't tried Pieology yet.

              My second date with my wife was at Biaggi's. We haven't been back since, maybe we'll take a look!

            2. We ate at Pieology and were not impressed, and the Maple Grove location closed shortly after we tried it.

              I keep hoping Pizza Luce eventually expands into the Northwest suburbs.

              2. Pizza Luce might be my wife and I's favorite restaurant. The location in Duluth is superior to the ones in the cities, though. I don't know why, but their artichoke dip is noticeably better.

  13. RIP, Tommy Heinsohn. I'm too young to have seen him play, but clearly a key figure in the Celtics dynasty and part of their broadcast team for a very, very long time.

    1. I thought I remembered him as a player, but, no. He retired after the 1964-65 season. He was a really good player for a few years.

      TIL that Heinsohn was a major force in the development of the players' union. He was the NBAPA's second president (after Cousy) and forced the league to accept a form of free agency in 1964.

    1. I love their players, so thankfully I can hate the ownership and management enough to tip the scales into overall still not liking the White Sox.

  15. We're not getting together.

    In theory we could get together with my family if we, say, rented out the church gymnasium back home and stayed far apart. It would be weird, but maybe possible.

    My wife's family has way too many little kids to make something like that possible. And she's big on being "fair" with these things, so we haven't brought up the "rent the gym" idea.

    Given our schools will probably go remote soon, our situation would allow us to quarantine for 2 weeks such that we could visit our parents around Christmas. However, I don't think my wife is going to be willing to try that even if we all took risk almost entirely out of the equation. Hunker down.

  16. for more than 25 years, Thanksgiving was a holiday with my in-laws. Last year was the first time since 1987 that I didn't spend the holiday with my wife, as she went to her mom's and I went to Minnesota to my parents'. This year will be the first with just the two of us. I dearly love my wife, but this makes me sad. No kids, no grands, no bickering siblings.

  18. Dakota County today: 376 new cases. 14 day per 10K number (unofficial, based on the numbers that the county reports): 79.83, up from 73.87 yesterday and 45.14 one week ago. We are on fire.

  19. We're not planning to get together with any family for Thanksgiving; it doesn't seem worth the risk for any of us. The boys wanted to be sure we could still eat Thanksgiving food even if we're not doing a big gathering, and our only stipulation is that they need to provide some amount of help and not think they can just spend the full day in front of screens while Mr. NaCl and I do all the work.

  20. FYI...

      1. Yup. I've shared the story many times, but one of our wedding guests worked with his dad, so she brought us an personalized, autographed baseball. I mailed him a thank-you note, and he wrote back lamenting that he missed my defunct blog and following his daily WPA.

  21. We live too far away from everyone in the family to ever see anyone for Thanksgiving. We often go skiing instead, but don't feel comfortable doing that this year.

    So instead, we're going to rent an RV and head to a national park. We figure that's about the most isolated way we can do something other than just stay home. Plus, our older kid is a 4th grader, which means free pass for the year! And, picking a less-visited park presumably allows us to get out on some hikes while still being away from others. Right now we're planning on going to Capitol Reef National Park, though Death Valley's an option if the weather in Utah ends up being bad that week.

    Considering our normal Christmas travel to visit both our families is not happening this year, this seems like our best shot to go somewhere this winter. My wife's family is having talks about trying to meet up in a house in the middle of the country somewhere, so we can all drive there (after quarantining everyone for two weeks), but the current increase in transmission rates means that's probably not happening, either

    1. There are obvious advantages for the Twins. I'm not so sure about the Saints, but maybe the Twins will give them enough money to make it worthwhile. I hope Rochester can get another affiliation. That's a city with a long and proud baseball tradition.

        1. I really don't understand what's in it for the Saints, then. Better class of ball? Marketing advantages?

          1. maybe they see the covid writing on the wall and forsee difficulties in maintaining that independent league schedule.

      2. I've never been to a Saints game. I'd consider going if there were some familiar names on the roster, so I think that is a positive for the Saints.

      2. My daughter and I went to a Saints game a couple of years ago and parking was $$$. Walking and/or biking much preferred.

  23. Not sure yet what we are doing. Currently planning to fly in 11/22 and do Xgiving at the MIL's. Flying from hot zone to another hot zone. No time to quarantine, and getting tested in MN is unlikely. I don't trust the nieces and nephews to be safe. I'm against it.

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