For the first time in my life, I’m going to be away from home for Thanksgiving.

With my budget barely giving me money to buy bar soap, it seemed impossible for me to afford a holiday feast. Then I looked back to my childhood.

Back then, Thanksgiving consisted of getting up, eating, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, eating, watching “Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving special” — ah ha! That’s it!

I realized that in order to make this Thanksgiving the best ever, all I had to do was look to my friends Charlie and Snoopy for advice.

Prepared to spend his holiday depressed (like always), Charlie has no plans other than doing homework and visiting his grandma. Peppermint Patty changes all this when she calls to inform Charlie that she and two of her friends are coming over for Charlie’s big feast.

Charlie isn’t prepared or eager to host a dinner but he’s too big of a softy to tell her no. Without a plan or a meal Charlie teams up with Linus, Woodstock, and Snoopy to make a Thanksgiving feast like this world has never seen.

The cooking team conjures up a delicious meal of buttered toast, pretzels, popcorn, jelly beans and ice cream sundaes. A fan of all these cheap foods, I was immediately hooked on the idea and decided to replicate this traditional animated experience.

The first task is to gather all your needed items: white bread, butter, pretzels, popcorn, jelly beans, ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate syrup. These ingredients should run you about $10 to $15 unless you want to splurge and get extra toast or cherries for the sundaes.

The next step is to prepare the food. If my memory serves me right, the proper Chef Snoopy order was popcorn, toast, toast, toast, toast, pretzels, jelly beans, sundaes.

And yes, they did make that much toast.

While I don’t have exact recipes for you to use, an uneducated guess had me pair the white bread with the butter and the ice cream with the whipped cream and chocolate syrup.

Presentation is the final touch in preparing a truly memorable dinner.

In true Snoopy fashion, the toast should be stacked at least one loaf high or served on a skewer. The sundaes may be eaten from wine glasses and a ping pong table will suffice for a dining surface.

I hope, instead of feeling down from eating far from your hometown, you turn your frown upside down by making a feast fit for Charlie Brown.

Please note that some substitutions are acceptable. For example: margarine can replace butter, juju fruits can replace jelly beans, a record console can replace a ping pong table, and your favorite kitten can replace Snoopy. Happy Thanksgiving!

Jacob Jennings, Diversions writer

diversions@dailybarometer.com, 737-6377