You probably didn’t know, but today is Fake Thanksgiving, at least in the Barn. Robbi’s brother and sister-in-law, and their 9-month baby boy are visiting from San Francisco, and Bob’s sister drove down from New York. And so we’re moving the feast up a few weeks. No complaints by me, of course.

We aim to eat a lot of food, so we got up early to start cooking. Kato helped Robbi with the chocolate cupcakes.

Before setting out to make some cupcakes of his own.

We weren’t sure how long to bake them or how they’ll turn out, but Kato certainly was pleased with himself.

Next up Robbi turned to the pecan pie.

Apparently, I have to wait for it to bake before I’m allowed to have a slice.

Next up, Robbi will painstakingly remove the fruit from each one of these cleverly cut orange halves before filling the rinds with homemade cranberry sauce.

By the time we raise our forks this evening, I will have made my trademark green bean casserole and others will have prepared mashed turnips, roasted vegetables, sweet potato something or other, biscuits, festive Fake Thanksgiving punch, and, of course, stuffing and turkey. Which is to say, I aim to sleep well tonight.

For their part, the kids are off celebrating Fake Thanksgiving in style. Reading and playing with marbles and such.

Time to shuffle off to my desk to get some work done. Apparently, my employer fails to recognize this particular holiday.