Stress less this Thanksgiving, and let the Johnson County Public Library help you easily navigate the holiday.
To start with, you’ll need a library card. We promise it’s quick and painless and takes less than five minutes to get your hands on one — you can even get one online at PageAfterPage.org/card. Once you’ve secured your library card, grab one of our handy shopping baskets (or carts) to help you hold the following items with ease:
1. Cookbooks — boy, have we got a ton! Keto-friendly, vegan, baking, celebrity, Taste of Home and more. Between all four branches, we have several thousand for you to peruse (no exaggeration). Grab a couple; it’s fun to window-shop different recipes!
2. Baking kits — every good Thanksgiving feast has some sort of dessert. We have cake tins and cookie cutters available to check out. We have you covered if you want a Darth Vader-shaped cake or Hello Kitty! There are lots of unique shapes and designs to choose from.
3. Light therapy lamp — it’s getting darker earlier, and you want to ensure you are in a good and chipper mood, especially if you’re cooking or hosting. Enjoy a daily dose of healthy, bright light that may improve sleep, boost mood, increase energy and enhance focus.
4. Puzzles — nothing draws the family together like sitting at a card table and trying to solve a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. It’s relaxing and a great way to talk to your family while keeping your hands busy. Each branch has a puzzle exchange from which you can take puzzles; there is no need to check or return them!
5. DVDs — not only do we have cooking and baking DVDs, but we also have lots of cooking reality shows to help you feel better (or worse) about your cooking. “The Great British Bake Off,” “Cook’s Country,” “The Great American Recipe” and “The French Chef” are just some cooking-inspired TV series you can binge when you need to take a breather from Thanksgiving plans.
Once you’ve checked out those items, going home and formulating a plan is easy. Finalize the guest list, narrow down the recipes, make the grocery list, clean your house and take a deep breath. The holidays are about family and food, and unlike my favorite Hallmark movies — they don’t need to be perfect. Ask for help, delegate tasks and recipes, and stop at the library to check out the previously listed items for some inspiration.
If you’ve got lots of kids in your family that you need to keep entertained while you cook and clean, just whip out that library card again! You can check out board games, video games and Thanksgiving picture books and movies for the little ones. My personal favorite kid’s book is “‘Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving” by Dav Pilkey (yes, the same guy who does Captain Underpants). As a child, I read it every year, and as an adult, I plan on reading it to my daughter to continue the tradition. As Jefferson Bethke said, “Thankfulness is the quickest path to joy.” And as I like to say, the library is the second quickest path. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Erin Cataldi is the Adult and Teen Services Librarian at the Clark Pleasant Branch of Johnson County Public Library. JCPL staff members share in writing this twice-monthly column for the Daily Journal. Send comments to [email protected].
