I hadn’t had any for awhile, so I pulled out the recipe my Aunt Patti gave me over twenty-five years ago and made a tasty loaf.

Have you ever made beer bread? You can buy mixes, (hubby got one for Christmas that was good,) but the recipe only has five ingredients so it’s super simple. I heard one time that cheap beer works best so I use whatever we have in the house. If I was more adventurous, I would try a better beer, but I am afraid I won’t like the results. (Try different beers and let me know what you like.)

I don’t drink alcohol, but beer bread doesn’t taste like beer. It just tastes delicious. I have provided a recipe below, and I’m sure there are a lot more online.

Aunt Patti's Beer Bread

3 cups flour
4 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
3 tsp. sugar
12 oz. beer of your choice

Preheat over at 350 degrees. 
Grease bread pan. Mix dry ingredients. 
Add beer and mix until doughy. Pour batter into pan. 
Cook 50 to 60 minutes.

One more hint, I think the bread is better the next day. It’s very moist when it first comes out of the oven. Of course, I couldn’t wait and enjoyed every bite.

Saturday is a great day to make spaghetti. The sauce can simmer longer, and everyone can linger around the dinner table. Or you can go out to eat and have unlimited breadsticks and salad before you stuff yourself with pasta.

I prefer medium shells to spaghetti noodles, but I’m fond of spaghetti sauce (my hubby makes a great sauce.) I especially like it with meatballs. No matter the pasta shape, I call it spaghetti.

Americans eat about 20 pounds of pasta a year. Most families have spaghetti about once a week. I did as a kid, but I have it less often now. Although when we make a batch, we eat if for three days, so it might average out.

Ever wonder how pasta is made? I watch a lot of cooking shows and love watching the crazy length that pasta dough grows to (like in this America’s Test Kitchen video), but it’s also fun to watch millions of pounds of pasta being made. (Beware watching just one How It’s Made video though because it’s hard to stop.)

I think the best thing about spaghetti is that everyone has their own recipe, so no two dishes taste alike. That can be true even in one household. My hubby’s spaghetti sauce is never the same twice, but it’s always tasty. What is your favorite sauce? Do you make it yourself, or does it come out of a can or jar? Perhaps it’s from a powdered packet like my mom used when I was a kid? Or do you make it from scratch like my aunt? I didn’t bother including any recipes here because I figured we each have our own.

I do not like talking on the phone, so if I was writing this activity today, I would suggest connecting with someone in whatever way works for you. I just had a friend message me on Facebook. I haven’t talked to him for a few months, and now we’ve reconnected. It was lovely of him to reach out.

Because that’s what is important, right? Reaching out. How you do it isn’t important. Write a letter, send an email, use Morse code* (if that works for you and your friend), or if you want, pick up the phone. It’s a great gift that costs nothing but can mean the world to the person you are connecting with.

*I have included a website if you want to learn Morse code. I loved learning it as a kid, although I don’t remember most of it. If you think there is no use for Morse code, think again. Morse code bracelets are a fashionable way to wear your name or endearment.

I can’t think of anything to suggest. Much of what I do at Christmastime is the same as what I did when I was a kid.

• I use an advent calendar
• I send cards
• I listen to Christmas music
• I watch Christmas movies
• I color Christmas pages
• I make Christmas crafts
• I decorate my house
• I give wrapped gifts to friends and family
• I do religous activities

The way that I do these things might have changed over time, but not the activity itself or the meaning behind it. So, I need your help.

Do you have childhood traditions* that you don’t do nowadays? Would you be interested in doing it again? Let me know in the comments, and maybe I’ll remember a tradition that I’d stopped doing. Except for having to go to school, which I’m not ready to repeat, I can’t think of any.

I found a great list of timeless Christmas activities. I do most of them, so it didn’t help my dilemma, but you might find something fun to do.

Since my moms-in-law are visiting us this week, we had turkey with all the fixings yesterday. We’ll do it again on Thanksgiving with friends. What I forget every year, until I do it again, is how much I like cooking a turkey.

It’s simple, hands-off, and the results are always great. Why can’t all food be this easy to fix? The smell makes everyone happy, and there are leftovers. It’s a perfect food.

I think the turkey industry is missing a bet. Except for an occasional Easter turkey, we only cook a turkey in November and December. Why doesn’t the turkey lobby convince us all to have turkey once a month? We don’t do it now because it’s almost impossible to find a turkey and if you do, it’s really expensive. But that could change.

Maybe the turkey growers don’t want us eating whole turkey year-round. Perhaps the industry’s doing fine with the Thanksgiving turkey formula. I once saw a Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe where he went to a turkey farm. It seemed like a lot of work and a very dirty (and noisy) job.

I don’t think the amount of turkey I eat in a year is going to increase, so I’m going to enjoy the couple I get to make. I’m just glad it’s so easy to get tasty results. All I need to be happy at Thanksgiving dinner is turkey and cranberry sauce. What do you like best?