News of the Week: Black November, Christmas TV, and What to Do with All Those Leftovers

In the news for the week ending November 25, 2022, are what to watch, where to live, how to shop, and what to make with leftover turkey.

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While Supplies Last!

Are you all ready for your Black Friday shopping? Sorry, you’re too late! Black Friday is soooooooo 2009.

Instead we now have Black November, when stores and websites have deals all month long. Which is pretty much an admission that there are other times when you can get deals both online and in brick and mortar stores. You don’t have to go to a store and wait in line at midnight and punch someone in the throat when they try to take that last toaster away from you (unless that’s a holiday tradition you want to pass on to your kids).

Some places are calling it “early access” to Black Friday sales. They just want you to buy things all the time.

One day it won’t even start in November. There will be Black July sales, with the ad jingle “It’s never too early for Christmas!”

This is where I would usually link to sites that have all the deals and guides to the best places to buy this and that. But come on, do you really need someone to hold your hand as you shop for clothes or books or toys or toasters?

You could also be a rebel and buy nothing! The day after Thanksgiving also happens to be Buy Nothing Day. (On Sunday you can just double up on what you were going to buy on Black Friday.)

Pardon Me?

President Biden officially pardoned two turkeys at the White House this week, Chocolate and Chip. Chocolate had gone to prison for insider trading while Chip had more weed on him than is allowed. But they’re both free now! Free!

It’s a good thing that both turkeys were pardoned. It would have been awkward if there were two turkeys and he had to choose which one got pardoned and which one got eaten.

You’ll Never Guess Cambridge Dictionary’s Word of the Year (Not Even with Six Tries)

This is the time of year when we find out which words various dictionaries and websites have picked for their “word of the year.” First up in the Cambridge Dictionary: They chose a word that drove British people crazy on Wordle, and that word is homer.

No, it’s not Homer as in the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and it’s not Homer as in Simpson. It’s the American slang for home run. How’s a Brit supposed to know that? It’s not fair!

The day that puzzle appeared, the word homer was searched for over 65,000 times on the dictionary’s site. But are people right to be unhappy? Wordle doesn’t give you a definition of the word; you just have to guess the word itself. So why couldn’t it mean homer as in a racing pigeon, a homing device, or a biblical unit of volume?

By the way, I have the ultimate starting word for Wordle. But I’m not going to tell you what it is.

Small Towns

HGTV has a list of the 50 best small towns in the country. It’s quite a diverse list. You can even live someplace with an international flair, like Paris (Tennessee), Warsaw (Indiana), or even New Castle (Delaware).

I always wonder if the people in these towns are grateful they’ve been picked or irritated. “Yes, we have a lovely town BUT PLEASE DON’T MOVE HERE.”

I’m glad I read the list because otherwise I wouldn’t have known that there’s a town in Alaska called Unalaska.

The Complete Guide to Holiday TV

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me …

Twelve Hallmark rom-coms

Eleven angry grinches

Ten melting snowmen

Nine flying reindeer

Eight Perry Comos

Seven heat misers

Six long-haired donkeys

Five George Baileys

Four Home Alones

Three jolly Santas

Two bah humbugs

and a partridge in Charlie Brown’s tree …

That’s a lot of TV to get through. Luckily there’s a guide to all of the holiday specials, movies, and Christmas-themed TV episodes (and here’s another list just in case).

Christmas Gift of the Week

I’ll admit that I’m not familiar with the ins and outs of nail polish, but is there any reason why someone would want their nails to change color when their beer is cold?

RIP Michael Gerson, George Lois, Mickey Kuhn, Ned Rorem, Nicki Aycox, and Jason David Frank

Michael Gerson was a speechwriter for President George W. Bush and later a columnist for The Washington Post. He died last week at the age of 58.

George Lois was an advertising icon who came up with many classic covers for Esquire and created the “I Want My MTV!” campaign. He died last week at the age of 91.

Mickey Kuhn was a child actor and the last surviving credited cast member of Gone with the Wind. He also appeared in A Streetcar Named Desire, Dick Tracy, Red River, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Broken Arrow, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, and many other films. He died Sunday at the age of 90.

Ned Rorem was an acclaimed composer who won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1976. He died last week at the age of 99.

Nicki Aycox had roles on many shows, including Supernatural, Dark Blue, Cold Case, and Ed. She died last week at the age of 47.

Jason David Frank played one of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers for almost 30 years. He died last weekend at the age of 49.

This Week in History

Queen Elizabeth Marries Prince Philip (November 20, 1947)

Here’s a profile of the Queen from the November 8, 1952, issue of the Post titled “The World’s Busiest Mother.”

First Appearance of Tweety Bird (November 21, 1942)

It was a cartoon titled A Tale of Two Kitties. It was also the first appearance of the cartoon duo Babbit and Catstello, who, of course, were based on another duo, Laurel and Hardy.

This Week in Saturday Evening Post History: Zenith TV (November 19, 1960)

Gather ’round kids as we watch all the Christmas shows and I’ll tell you about those magical days when we only had to use one remote for the television!

Thanksgiving Leftovers

You have a lot of leftovers, don’t you? A turkey carcass and various plastic containers filled with stuffing and pie and that one vegetable no one likes but you make it every year anyway because it’s tradition. You could just make another Thanksgiving plate out of it, or …

… how about this Mashed Potato Pizza from Food Network or this Pumpkin Chili from The Pioneer Woman? Delish has this Turkey Noodle Soup and these Friendsgiving Nachos, while Country Living has a Leftover Turkey Pasta Bake. AllRecipes has a Cranberry and Turkey Salad and Deep Fried Stuffing Balls.

And for dessert, try this Baked Sweet Potato Pudding from Taste of Home or these Pumpkin and Ice Cream Sandwiches from Martha Stewart.

Next Week’s Holidays and Events

Small Business Saturday (November 26)

In between Black Friday and Cyber Monday (coming up this Monday) we have Small Business Saturday. It’s probably the most important of these shopping days.

90th Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting (November 30)

NBC will have a two-hour special beginning at 8 p.m., with several musical guests and a performance by the Rockettes.

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Comments

  1. Buy Nothing Day sounds great, especially during the Holidays. Thanksgiving was quite pleasant, in no small part thanks to a few cups of some (unexpected) cannabis tea. I also poured my unofficial mother-in-law a couple of cups, and had made sure her liquor flask and cigarettes with the long holder were left at her house.

    Thanks for the link to those beautiful small towns. I love them all. So apparently CBS has stopped the colorized episodes of ‘I Love Lucy’ and ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’ last seen in 2019, like so many other things. Nice Zenith TV ad from 1960 when the remote wasn’t a complicated ordeal, nor life in general otherwise. A mid-century fantasy now.

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