• He went on to say that Knox is a "clean-faced young girl, swept away by a tsunami." • Two California girls, ages 12 and 14, have been arrested for attacking a 13-year-old classmate - twice. The girls lured the victim, who they believed had been talking shit about them, to a field, telling her that they had some belongings of hers to return. Police caught the attackers after they posted videos of the beatings on YouTube. • Accused Cleveland serial killer Anthony Sowell has been indicted on murder charges in the deaths of 11 women, plus dozens of other counts, including kidnapping, abuse of a corpse, attempted murder, assault and rape. Authorities say many of the 10 identified victims were homeless addicts he lured into his home. • NPR's Richard Gonzales, who grew up in Richmond, California, returned to see how the town is coping after a teenage girl was gang-raped at the high school. He spoke to sophomore Lizette Franco, who said, "We don't want it to be our identity, because there is so much more to Richmond than what they're portraying in the media. We're not animals. We're not savages. We're students striving to be better people." •  Former track star Marion Jones has announced plans to sign up with a W.N.B.A. team. Jones, who was busted for steroid use and has since toured the country speaking to students about making good choices, says she hopes the W.N.B.A. will provide a larger platform for her message, as well as a "second chance." •  Good news: According to the DCist, a bill instituting same-sex marriage has just passed in the D.C. council. Ben Smith from Politico notes that this is "a sign that same-sex marriage has really become a quite mainstream Democratic cause, one embraced equally by a Massachusetts court and an urban City Council." • The Senate is expected to vote today on an amendment that would increase health insurance benefits for women in the first vote on the health care overhaul legislation. The amendment was introduced by Senators Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine and inspired by the recent and controversial mammogram and Pap smear recommendations. "My amendment guarantees screening for breast cancer, yes, mammograms," Mikulski said. "We don't mandate that you have a mammogram at age 40. What we say is discuss this with your doctor, but if your doctor says you need one, my amendment says you are going to get one." • Zeituni Onyango, the half sister of President Obama's late father, gave an interview to the Associated Press in which she said she's anguished over not having contact with the family after it was revealed that she'd been illegally living in U.S. public housing for years. She isolated herself from the family after the inauguration because she didn't want her immigrations problems to hurt his presidency. "Before, we were family. But right now, there is a lot of politics, and me, I am not interested in any politics at all," she said. • South African President Jacob Zuma said today - on World AIDS Day - that the government will make sure that all HIV-positive babies receive treatment. There are also plans to expand testing and treatment for pregnant women. •  Sarah Palin's absurdist memoir Going Rogue has sold 1 million copies, a HarperCollins spokeswoman reveals. The publisher has increased the print run accordingly, to 2.8 million. • Asma Hanif, who runs a Baltimore domestic violence shelter for Muslim women says, "My biggest problem was that if you send a Muslim woman to be counseled in a shelter that's run by Christians, then what the people say is the reason why you're being beat is because of that religion. We do not want Islam to be the focal point of domestic violence." She added that in other shelters, "There may be situations - such as, there would be men that were there, or there wasn't any place for them to pray, or maybe there was an issue with the food." • An online poll of 1,027 people by the Tylenol Canadian Pain Survey found that women report experiencing headaches more often than men, and they experience somewhat more pain than men. "Pain doesn't discriminate against gender; however, with headache pain, women tend to be more expressive in reporting their pain than men, and tend to be more proactive in managing it," said Dr. Gary Shapero, a family physician who has studied headache and pain management. • Salon owner Cindy Vong is fighting the Arizona Board of Cosmetology's decision to ban flesh-eating fish foot treatments. "The board knows nothing about spa fish therapy, so its reaction is to shut it down," said her lawyer. "The board's action is more about protecting cosmetologists from competition than it is about protecting consumers against anything except wet feet and smooth skin." • On Thanksgiving, a woman and her brother were fighting over whether their parents are too old to be watching their children, when he allegedly threw extremely hot pecan pie at her after it was heated in the microwave. She was treated for first and second degree burns to her neck, face, and chest. Her brother is expected to be charged with aggravated assault. • 26-year-old Swedish father Ragnar Bengtsson has given up his months-long attempt to pump milk from his breasts. "All he got was sore breasts," said the host of a local show that was following the progress of the "Milkman." However, Bengtsson isn't walking away empty handed: He's flying to the U.S. to appear on - of course - The Tyra Banks Show. •

[New York, November 26. Image via AP]

Mary Linen, of New York, left, stands in line with others as they wait to partake in a free Thanksgiving dinner at a Salvation Army center in the Harlem section of New York, Thursday Nov. 26, 2009. (AP Photo/Tina Fineberg)

Calm down, I'm not advocating incest. I'm merely suggesting that some of the same identity-obscuring, affect-flattening nostrums found in modern dating guides can be useful when interacting with Grandma, Uncle Ted, and that one cousin who always wants to talk about guns. Sure, you could watch the 1950 short "A Date With Your Family" (above) to learn about how it's your duty to dress attractively for your male relatives (ew?). But for more up-to-date advice, check out the following tips:

1. Don't talk about yourself too much.

Personal information — like your political views, religious beliefs, or the fact that your name is not actually "Becky" — shouldn't be revealed until the second or third date with your family. Or better yet, not at all. You know the old rule about letting a man talk two-thirds of the time, while you talk one-third? This works well for your family, too, except that the two-thirds portion should be filled by the television.

2. Don't try to cook anything new or complicated.

You know how the way to a man's heart is through a simple yet delicious man-brisket? Families have similarly conservative tastes. This Thanksgiving, my mom made a pie with whole-wheat crust. Three aunts and six cousins broke up with her right away. Don't let this be you.

3. Just agree with everything anyone says.

Many great relationships have ended because of superfluous opinions on the part of the woman — and these opinions can be just as damaging to a family gathering. Instead of saying what you actually think, simply smile and nod, or at most say, "Interesting!" Will it really kill you to pretend you don't believe in the moon landing? No, it won't.

4. Choose inoffensive entertainment.

People have different tastes, and as a woman, your job is to satisfy all of them. Just like a romantic date, an evening with your family isn't about what you want to do — it's about what's least likely to piss off someone else. Family-friendly films include Miss Congeniality, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous, and any biopic that does not involve drugs. Family-friendly music includes nothing.

5. Don't talk about healthcare reform.

This one should just be obvious.

These tips may seem difficult to follow, but over years of subsuming your true thoughts and feelings, they will become second nature. And once you've mastered them, you too can land a family who loves you for who you pretend to be.

Hand Turkey FAQ

Q: What is a hand turkey?
A: An adorable craft made by American schoolchildren — and you!
Q: How do I make one?
A: Click the "full size" link, print the image (you might have to copy and paste into your favorite graphics program), cut it out, and glue or tape to a section of toilet paper roll. Use to decorate the dinner table this afternoon!
Q: What's special about these hand turkeys?
A: They are inspired by some of the year's biggest "turkeys" — public figures I felt should be immortalized in gobbling-bird form.
Q: Why don't the people have any arms? And why are there fingers sticking up out of their backs?
A: It's been a long time since I made a hand turkey, okay? Shut up.
Q: Why is the Alaskan flag green?
A: Seriously, shut up.

Sarah Palin

Jon Gosselin

Tucker Max

Carrie Prejean

Happy Thanksgiving!

[Image via Russell Heistuman's Flickr.]

Wine Cake.

Now, I'm a decent cook. I delight in multi-day recipes and serious desserts, can whip up a 30-pound turkey and am the designated gravy-meister at my house. I pore over cookbooks and this year's variations like everybody else and can debate brining and what to do if, against Cook's Illustrated's explicit instructions, you absolutely insist on stuffing your turkey (bring it to some absurd temperature in the microwave first, of course.) And I'm not saying wine cake is what you want to make for your FCI entrance exam, or even for snootie foodies. But in all other cases, Wine Cake is a sort of O-positive of desserts.

My grandmother was the worst cook you'll ever meet - her cooking was a combination of passive-aggression and performance art and rotten ingredients and to be avoided whenever possible. The one exception was Wine Cake, which goes to show that it's fool-proof. Wine Cake is the traditional birthday cake on that side of the family, a tradition I've continued. It's one of those objectively revolting, 1950s-style recipes that makes no bones about its chemical antecedents and becomes more unfashionable every year. In a bid for respectability, I once worked out an all-natural version, but it just made me miss the original. Friends of mine have brought Wine Cake to feuding families and CIA picnics and block parties, and it's always a hit. Anyone can make it. So, without further ado, I give you:

Sherry Wine Cake

1 box yellow cake mix (I like Moist Deluxe, but grandma always used generic, so.)
1 lg. regular vanilla pudding (or just use 2 small)
1 c. oil
3/4 c. sherry wine (cheap, please)
5 eggs

Preheat oven to 350
Mix everything. Bake in a buttered-and-floured bundt pan for about 50 minutes, until the proverbial tester comes out clean.

Glaze:
1 cup powdered (confectioner's) sugar
1/2 cup sherry, or less. The point is, you want a quite liquid glaze.

Now, here is the crucial part. Without unmolding the hot cake, poke the exposed top - really the bottom! - all over, and I do mean all over, with a skewer, a chopstick, or a fork. Now, drizzle a goodly amount of glaze over the holes. It'll absorb.

Let it sit for another couple of minutes, just so it doesn't all run out. Then, unmold onto a rack. Or the serving dish, I guess, if you don't mind icing all over. If you do use the rack, do yourself a favor and put some waxed paper underneath. Now, repeat the pricking and pouring routine all over the rest of the cake. Soak it well! Now, let it cool.

After the cake is cool, I like to glaze again, this time with a thicker icing (just dump more sugar into the dregs of the glaze.) Drizzle this thicker, white icing over the cooled, glazed cake. Let firm up.

Et voila! Trust me, vile as this may sound, it's scrumptious in a mid-century sort of way. Do not dismiss it without trying it, like those most irritating of all Epicurious commenters. People will hate themselves for it, but they won't be able to stop eating it, or making it, or trying to figure out what makes it so moist. If you are a no-fun ascetic, I suppose you need not glaze quite so heavily; I must admit, my grandmother was not quite so enthusiastic in this department. But in my opinion, it's the 1/2" of sugary lusciousness - so rich and damp a cake, as Captain Hook would have it - that makes this so good. It is customary, in my family, to stick a fat pink candle in the hole. This may be omitted.

And if you just can't stomach it, here's another wonderful dessert. This one respectable. So, give: what's your fail-safe?

The good news? Although the regular weekday staff will be taking two days off (to sleep in, read, shop, and, in the case of Tracie Egan, get married) the lovely Lindsay Robertson will be posting intermittently throughout the day, and, on Monday, will rejoin us for two awesome weeks. (Something about a honeymoon in Bali.) Weekend posting will go on as normal, and remember: you can always make use of our #groupthink page, which is up and running 24/7, thanks to the contributions of our thousands of awesome commenters.

This is a pretty interesting spread they've got going here: There's wine, but no veggies or bread. Just meat and dessert. Not that I'm complaining. Interested in doing a little shopping? The pecan pie is $65; the apple pie is $65, and you'll pay a $150 for that ham. Oh, the chocolate turkey centerpiece is $175 — more than the actual 14 lb. turkey, which rings up at $125.

The Turkey Roulade is layered with cornbread stuffing (made from cornbread, yellow onions, celery, cranberries, pecans and jalapeño peppers) but the Harvest Cornucopia cake sounds even better: Buttery almond cake layered with rich vanilla cream, frosted in chocolate buttercream and wrapped in dark chocolate. What if I don't want the weird marzipan fruit — just the frosting? Will that knock a few bucks off the $150 price tag?

This Berkshire boneless ham looks decent, but there's no way it holds a candle to the pecan-covered, bourbon-soaked ham my mom used to make. Before my sister became a vegetarian.

Sour cream apple walnut pie — made with Granny Smith apples, fresh sour cream, topped with brown sugar, cinnamon and walnut streusel — sounds really good right about now. But if you're going to spend $65, the "pie sampler" may be the way to go: You get to taste the walnut pie, the pumpkin pie, the pecan pie and the Mississippi Mud pie. We discussed the pumpkin cake earlier, so let's move on to some other cakes…

The German chocolate cake has four layers of light chocolate cake with buttercream frosting and coconut and toasted pecans between the layers. Callebaut chocolate fudge and chocolate curls top the whole thing off. Sounds like $75 might be a bargain for that one. The coconut key lime cake is "zingy," according to the copy, but I'm really curious about the raspberry rose vanilla cake. Butter cake perfumed with Tahitian vanilla beans, then layered with buttercream flavored puréed raspberries and rose syrup? Never heard of such a thing!

Since the $180 purse cake seems gimmicky and the $40 pistachio cake not sweet enough, gâteau nuage cheesecake it is! "A delightful blend of cream cheese and whipped cream, layered with sour cream, in a graham cracker crust." And at $70? You're really putting your money where your mouth is.

Earlier: Halloween At Dean & Deluca: The Trick Is Being Able To Afford The Treats
Mackenzie: Hot, Steamy, Scrumptious Food Porn
Free People Wishes You Hippie Holidays
Lilly's Kids: What's Christmas Without Reinforcing Gender Stereotypes?

All previous catalog posts

Anna: Butternut squash and apple soup. Sliced warm baguette. Glass of Bailey's (on the rocks). 4-lb. roast chicken with stuffing and gravy. Garlic mashed potatoes. Torbreck Barossa Valley Woodcutter's Shiraz (2006). Baked macaroni & cheese. String beans. Roasted Brussels sprouts. Crescent rolls. Blueberry cobbler. Pecan pie. Vanilla Haagen Dazs ice cream. Glenlivet on the rocks (left unfinished).

Sadie:
Spiced pecans/sherry. Turkey (brined, free-range etc.) Gravy (SS's job.) Mashed potatoes. Mashed bourbon sweet potatoes. Green beans with walnuts and walnut oil. Succotash. Cornbread stuffing with apples and sausage. Cranberry sauce. Rolls. Riesling and sparkling cider. Coffee. Apple pie (SS-made). Pumpkin pie (Cook's Illustrated; perfect and labor-intensive.) Chocolate bourbon pecan pie. Whipped cream.

Megan:
2006 Beckman's Cuvee. French bread with whipped, unsalted butter. Herbed risotto with wild mushrooms and butternut squash. Haricot vert sauteed with garlic and walnuts. Molten chocolate cake with raspberries and vanilla bean crème fraîche. Coffee.

Jessica:
Turkey. Sweet Potato soufflé. Wild rice with sausage. Salad with dried cranberries. Pumpkin Pie. Apple Pie.

Your turn. Give us all the mouthwatering details: what worked, what didn't, and the recipes you discovered that must be shared with the world.

So, yes, obviously this is a contrived and cutesy concept for a piece - not that there's anything wrong with that. Various business types weigh in with executive strategies and toss jargon around in a kitchen context.

With a vision firmly carved out, the next task is what business leaders would call engaging key stakeholders and identifying their performance expectations. That means figuring out who are the most important people to you at the Thanksgiving table and asking what they really want from the day and from you, the host.“Your goal as the leader here is to grasp what other people actually expect of you versus what you think they expect of you,” he said. “Often, what people expect is less than what you thought.”

You get the idea: let's just say, the conceit gets old pretty fast. Style aside, it doesn't seem like a template like this is seriously going to change anyone's attitude — certainly not a day before Thanksgiving. And the draconian breakdown the piece jokingly suggests sounds kinda Gulag-like- everyone might do his share, but no one's happy. Besides, anyone compulsive enough to run a holiday meal like this already has it in hand and in any case, doesn't really seem like a personality type who'd be open to delegating.

And the truth is, the inequality of Thanksgiving labor is one of the horrible traditions of the holiday. Sometimes it's a question of space — a literal too-many cooks situation. Sometimes people's cooking styles don't mesh. A few are willing but incompetent. Occasionally good cooks are stressful kitchen companions. Some people are just really lazy and feel they've earned the right to do nothing but pig out. And then there are the kitchen martyrs who insist on full glory. As anyone who's helmed the meal knows, very rare is the kitchen helper who can slip in unobtrusively, stirring and chopping like a well-trained line cook, ceding full creative control to a tacitly-acknowledged chef de cuisine. More often, as a cook, you turn around to find some hippie blithely crumbling frankincense into a carefully-seasoned bowl of stuffing, or a well-meaning relative pestering you to know where mixing bowls are. Delegating requires trust, and in a family situation, not everyone has earned it.

Besides, why, in these financially troubled times, would anyone model herself on a bastion of capitalist industry? It's obviously A) hard and B) unrewarding. (The temptation to make some horrible gravy bailout joke is almost overwhelming.) So stick to the plan: you work, you shirk, everyone eats. Rinse — the same person who always gets stuck with dishes, that is — and repeat.

The C.E.O. of Thanksgiving Dinner [New York Times]
[Image via My Recipes]

The "American Farmstead cheese collection" includes Marieke Gouda, Vermont Ayr, La Fleurie and Capriole O'Banon. Whatever that means. Looks delicious. Also not bad? The sheep. And the dude.

Hmm, a new Thanksgiving tradition? Mini empanadas seem like a great idea, all of a sudden. So do bacon-wrapped dates. And phyllo-wrapped spinach triagles. And tamales. Yum.

There's something about pot pie on a cold day. So warm, so creamy, so filling. This one is lobster, but chicken is great, too. Also seen here: smoked salmon trio (scotch-cured, Maine sea spice and lemon-and-dill) and maple-smoked salmon fillet.

Beef. It's what's for dinner. Will you have filet mignon? Strip steaks? Rib roast? Or some dry-aged beef? Everything looks juicy and divine.

Some families always have turkey; my people are prone to ham. We like it soaked in bourbon and smothered in pecans, but both of these look okay. Let's just skip to dessert.

The "bûche de Nöel" is a cake that looks like a log. This one is chocolate genoise cake "rolled with a light, fluffy layer of chocolate ganache and rerobed in chocolate truffle buttercream cleverly sculpted to replicate bark." And those mushrooms are made of meringue. Some people love tiramisu; I think I'd opt for the peppermint gelato truffles down below. They're described as "silky-smooth," and now my mouth is watering.

Peppermint bark! It's official, the holidays have begun.

You can't actually buy this adorable igloo cake — Williams-Sonoma just sells the mold — but it's so cute!

Even better: Red velvet cake. Or cupcakes. Get your own.

Then there's 12-layer chocolate cake, coconut lemon layer cake and five layer mousse cake. Ever feel like you want to live inside of a cake?

You can try and live inside of this gingerbread manor, if you like. A recession bargain at $250. Oh, but here's a tip for the folks at Williams-Sonoma: Why not call your gingerbread cookies "kids" instead of "boys"? Especially when one is named Samantha?

Anyway, if the manor is a little high-end for your taste, downsize to a little gingerbread shack.

Williams-Sonoma [Official Site]

Earlier: The Naked Chef: Pfaelzer Brothers Peddle Hot Food Porn

Do you like it spicy in your mouth? Well try a steaming heap of pumpkin…mmmmmmm.

[Image via The Martha Blog]

This slice of apple pie looks so good you just wanna stick your…face in it.

[Image via Lick Your Own Bowl]

Don't you love looking at the sloppy wet inside of a blueberry pie? (By the way, Anna is in need of a good blueberry cobbler recipe. Any suggestions?)

[Image via Totally Cooked]

It looks like this chocolate could not contain itself and spurted all over the pecan pie. We'd post a picture of cherry pie, but it's entirely too scandalous. And…we're spent.

[Image via España Profunda]

A Brief History Of Pie [Time]

Earlier: The Naked Chef: Pfaelzer Brothers Peddle Hot Food Porn

Apparently some people put a ton of thought into Thanksgiving looks: the founders of Juicy are sporting, according to Friedman, "Martha Stewart-tastic" and "Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire" looks, respectively. As Friedman points out, despite the holiday's devotion to gluttony, "it has an oddly ascetic edge, having been initiated by the Pilgrims, who tended to come to the table in their white collars and buttoned-up black dresses." Since we now know that turkey, pumpkin and corn may not have in fact had anything to do with the first Thanksgiving, dressing in John Smith costumes seems unnecessary. As does, for that matter, the purchase of the Miu Miu dress at which the author arrives — "round-necked, with a little white collar; mid-calf, but vaguely cheongsam in silhouette, with narrow three-quarter length sleeves; all in batik-like print."

However true that "a suit seems too professional, but a cocktail dress is too party-ish; jeans and trousers are often too casual, and so on," it seems like unless you're at one of those hyper-fancy catered Thanksgivings surrounded by professionally- crafted wheat sheaths (which screams "skirt and sweater"), you can wear whatever you want. Maybe nothing revealing - relatives! - and maybe nothing too fancy - cranberry sauce! - but for the most part, who's judging? Besides, if your house is anything like mine, it is freezing, your mom will be in sweats, and your very sweet elderly relatives will arrive with a dubious Laura Ashley outfit that you end up having to wear anyway. (The self-sacrifice of which is nothing if not Puritan chic.) Friedman feels that the puritan look is appropriate for the current hard times. You know what else is: not thinking about clothes! So, for the most part, give thanks for not having to worry about it: that's what the next six weeks are for.

Give Thanks For Puritan Values [Financial Times]

• Trap #1: Nosy Aunt Helen So maybe it's not Nosy Aunt Helen. Maybe it's Nosy Uncle George or Nosy cousin Kathleen or Nosy neighbor Olive. The point is this: there will, quite possibly, be someone at your Thanksgiving gathering who has one too many cups of egg nog and decides that it's their personal duty to ask you as many embarrassing or intrusive questions about your life as possible. If you're single, she'll want to know why. If you're married, she'll want to know why you don't have kids. If you already have kids, she'll want to know when you're going to have more. The trick here is to have canned responses at the ready: it's hard for Nosy Aunt Helen to continue and escalate her line of dumb questioning if you shut her off at the get go. I have a Nosy Aunt Helen who used to ask me every year why my boyfriend and I weren't married yet. By the 6th year we'd been dating, she amped it up to "You should really get married if you plan on living together. You can't just date someone forever. It's just not right." By this time I had had enough of Nosy Aunt Helen's bullcorn, so I responded with this: "Well, it works for Oprah." Oprah is untouchable to women like Nosy Aunt Helen. She just stood there and tried to respond, but I'd won the battle, and she hasn't asked me about my boyfriend since. Sometimes you just have to know where to strike.

• Trap #2: The Food Is Bad. Really Bad. The entire focus of Thanksgiving is the food. If you happen to find yourself at a gathering where the food is god-awful, it will surely put you in a pretty craptacular mood. But nobody will feel worse, I can assure you, than your host. If the food is bad, they'll know it. They'll probably begin to apologize before the turkey is even on the table, which is never a good sign. While their apologies might not take the sting out of being served a crappy Thanksgiving meal, here is where your spirit of Thanksgiving needs to kick in: your friend/family member tried to make you a good meal, putting their time, money, and energy into each dish. Their heart was in the right place, at least. Be a trooper and eat what you can. If your host has a sense of humor about the whole thing, you can always order pizza and make jokes about the dried-out turkey and crunchy stuffing- that's the stuff that Thanksgiving memories are made of. But if your host is on the verge of tears, try to be kind. Compliment them on the lovely table settings, or the delicious pie. And honestly, the best way to avoid a completely disastrous Thanksgiving meal is to bring a dish of your own, to ensure that there will be at least one thing on the table that you'll enjoy.

• Trap #3: Travel Nightmares Thanksgiving travel sucks. There's no way around it. You can try to avoid the rush by leaving a few days earlier than everyone else, but with work schedules, that's hard for most of us. The best thing to do is just to prepare yourself for the worst: fill your iPod with a playlist that will keep you sane. Stock up on sweets for the ride or flight. Try to treat the travel as an adventure, as sucky as it may be. Either that, or make people come to visit you, which brings us to:

• Trap #4: Horrible Houseguests You've decided to hold the holiday at your house, inviting your dearest friends and relatives to share a warm meal with you and yours and so on and so forth. But at some point between your invitation and your guests' arrival, they seem to have turned into total jerks, fighting with each other, making passive-aggressive remarks about your home and your cooking, and making insane demands that they insist you fulfill. You have three options, really: you can kick them out, which is clearly the more appealing option, yet in most cases that's a bit impossible. The other option is to speak up: nobody should make you feel like a jerk in your own house. If they don't like it, they'll probably leave, and good riddance to them. Option three, of course, is to grin and bear it and add a ton of vodka to your cranberry sauce. It's only for a few days: next year, you'll keep your holiday to yourself.

• Trap #5: You're A Vegetarian Most vegetarians have strategies to handle Thanksgiving. As Anna N. mentioned the other day, the side dishes are the best part of Thanksgiving, anyway. Tofurkey, of course, is also an option. Maybe you can even convince your family to have a vegetarian Thanksgiving with you, or at least a Tofurkey/Turkey combo of sorts. There might be someone who makes a snide comment about your vegetarian ways or demands to know why you don't eat meat: the best thing to do is to just be honest. If your fellow diners can't respect your views, that's their problem, not yours.

• Trap #6: You Don't Have Any Thanksgiving Plans For those of us who live far away from our families, have no family to speak of, or who are struggling economically and aren't sure they'll be able to swing a Thanksgiving meal this year, there are still ways to get involved on Thanksgiving Day. Soup kitchens are open and serving hot meals for those who need them, and charities are always looking for volunteers to help man the serving lines. Many of my friends are having an "Orphan Potluck Thanksgiving," where everyone who has no place to go brings a hot dish or a dessert in order to create a different kind of "family" celebration. There are always open doors on Thanksgiving: churches, community centers, and even certain restaurants are there to ensure that everyone has a warm, friendly place to go during the holidays.

• Trap #7: You Don't Live In The United States International Jezebels, I'm sure, are pretty sick of hearing about Thanksgiving. But dudes, even though your country doesn't celebrate it, doesn't mean that you can't! All you need is a turkey, a pumpkin pie, and something to be thankful for. And honestly? As soon as Thursday ends, the insane Christmas season begins, which is something that spreads its holiday madness across the globe. So get your Santa suits out and get ready to rock. By Friday, you won't have to hear about Thanksgiving for another 364 days. And that's something we can all be thankful for.

Any advice you'd like to share? Feel free to drop it in the comments.