I spent Thanksgiving Day with my brother’s family in Morgan Hill. My nephew and his girlfriend are expecting their first child next July. Since my nephew was born on New Year’s Day and his girlfriend was born on Labor Day, they are hoping for the baby to arrive on the Fourth of July. I think the men folk—harden baseball and football fans—was horrified after the dinner to hear that the mother-to-be was planning an elaborate tailgate party in the hospital parking lot.

I spent Black Friday working out at the gym first thing in the morning and cooking an 18-pound turkey in the afternoon. I skipped the entire shopping scene as I had already virtually stampeded Amazon. The Nintendo Wii was gone in the first minute. I tried to get an XBox 360 Core System for $100 USD but it took ten minutes for the web page to load up with the announcement that all 1,000 units were gone. I haven’t had this much fun since the early 1980’s when my mother punched out two other mothers at Toy “R” Us to get a Cabbage Patch Kids doll for my niece.