The First Pies of the Holidays!

In Chris Van Allsburg's classic, The Polar Express, Santa hands a sleigh bell to an unbelieving boy

 and proclaims, "The first gift of Christmas!" while the elves madly applaud.

It's Thanksgiving, not Christmas; nonetheless, I wanted to say something similar Sunday as I measured flour and salt into a bowl.

 I realized that this was just the beginning of 

 the first pies of the holidays!!

I don't get wild applause when I bake pies, but I do occasionally get excited exclamations. (One of my favorites was the time a barely awake Braden stumbled into the kitchen early one morning, saw what I was doing, and promptly rushed back into the living room crowing, "Pies!! She's making pies!!")

Happy Birthday, Jessica and Andrew! Enjoy your lemon meringue pies!