PHYLLIS

Let’s talk turkey.

This year, Thanksgiving is three days before the month of December. There are 26 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, allowing four weekends to shop, decorate, mail cards, hang lights, sing a carol, wrap, tag, bake, celebrate, reflect, and generally prepare for Christmas.

This presents the dilemma of holiday decorating. Do you forgo the cornucopia and replace it with a snowman? On principle, can you eat pumpkin pie under blinking lights, while smelling balsam?

As usual, it’s Van Otis to the rescue. Since all of their handcrafted candies are works of art, they serve as both decor and dessert.

For 8 years, Van Otis has offered patrons Phyllis, a hollow, 13-lb chocolate turkey. She is a popular Thanksgiving fixture in the Manchester retail store and would be a great centerpiece on any Thanksgiving table.

After dinner, guests will surely help make Phyllis disappear, so you’re ready to hang mistletoe.

Dress for Dinner

Unfortunately, mealtime etiquette is a fairly low priority for our family. With our hectic schedules we take pride in actually having eaten rather than accomplishing that task with polish and grace. Seriously, it’s not easy enforcing manners while eating a nugget on the car ride from practice to rehearsal.

Holidays are our opportunity for a slowdown. I look forward to a festive table and even make an effort to put the utensils in their proper order and position. I’m drawn to centerpieces, but my very practical side knows that they typically make a short-lived appearance before swiftly being replaced by the meal. So I’m constantly on the hunt for smaller, more permanent solutions to dress up the holiday table.

This year I’ve decided to add a surprise and no, I don’t mean a salad fork. Sidling the dinner plate will be a piece of chocolate in the small, covered dishes that I recently purchased at an unnamed, local retailer. (Don’t You Just Love a Bargain?) These dishes were intended for individual butter servings, but I think they’ll be perfect sweet treat holders. When dinner guests find a Van Otis decorative truffle or foiled chocolate next to their plate, the burning question won’t be which fork to use but whether or not to eat dessert first. No need to consult Emily Post for that answer.