The local Boulder weekly paper published this article with advice on how to make holiday parties easier.  Among the ideas is the suggestion to buy certain foods rather than making them yourself, including cranberry sauce.

Advising someone to buy cranberry sauce to make preparation easier is like telling someone to buy bottled water instead of using the tap.  Gravy I can understand.  It take a bit of effort and skill to get it right.  Pie?  Same thing.

But cranberry sauce?  Toss cranberries, water, and sugar in a pan and boil for five minutes.  Voila, cranberry sauce.  It tastes better, has no extraneous ingredients, and doesn’t use up a can.  If you’re really feeling brave, you can add cinnamon or other spices.  Again, it’s not rocket science.  Homemade cranberry sauce is so easy and tastes so good, it’s a wonder people ever thought to put it in a can.

Sometimes, it seems, humans go out of their way to make life more difficult.