Lisa Carnley is managing editor of the Lampasas Dispatch Record. The Thanksgiving meal was delicious. My younger son, Zach, and his wife, Courtney, cooked it together. And with the help of an Internet site on a laptop computer (our modern version of a cookbook), Zach even made homemade cheese biscuits, just like the ones at Red Lobster.

The turkey was moist, and I’m not much of a meat eater and don’t usually partake in too much of the bird, but the onions, carrots and herbs he stuffed the turkey with were delish.

And Zach even turned the bird breast-side-up to bake it, noting that the Web site said it would make it more juicy -- and it did.

Also along for the meal was my elder son, Jason, who lives near Fort Worth. Like me, Jason didn’t plan to cook for Thanksgiving, so the invitation was much appreciated. (Truth be told, I invited myself, but hey, they’ve been doing that to me for years.)

I admit Jason does like to cook, and I’m not sure where he got that from. It’s just too much trouble for me to fix food for one person. But apparently, he makes a three-course meal for himself every evening.

I stayed two nights with Zach and Courtney, and on the third night, I packed my suitcase and went to Jason’s house.

It was pitiful -- the house. By that, I mean, it was really kind of sad...and empty.

Jason is an inveterate bachelor, and at 29 years old, one would think (by looking at it) that he had never lived by himself. He didn’t have much of anything.

It wasn’t that his house was dirty; it looked...abandoned -- for lack of a better word.

Everything in his nearly-new three bedroom, two bath home with a separate dining room could have fit into a one-bedroom apartment with plenty of room left over.

The walls were blank and starkwhite, and there wasn’t much furniture.

But I pitched in to change that. Earlier this summer, I bought an old dining room set at a garage sale. I painted the two chairs black, and they sat in my spare room until Jason came to pick them up. We stuffed them and the table into the back of Jason’s jeep for the trek back to Fort Worth.

Accompanying that was a wrought-iron shelf for his movie collection, and various pots and pans and cooking utensils.

Then when I spent the night with him, we hit a few stores to purchase some items for his walls. After we got back to his house, we hung up a couple of things, and he stepped back, and after a good look, he exclaimed that his house was beginning to look like a home.

Well, that got me fired up. So, for Christmas, I’m buying everything to decorate Jason’s kitchen and both of his bathrooms.

He didn’t ask about the colors or patterns, because he just doesn’t care. But I do. I can’t stand the thought of him coming home to an empty house with the only thing in the living room being a torn couch and a chair without the handles that were eaten off by a teething puppy.

Now he has a few plaques and a couple of signs scattered through the house, as well as a big metal sun hanging over his bed. Yeah, we did good. And it’s only going to get better.

Next time I go to Fort Worth to visit, I will have to help him hang the stuff I bought for Christmas on the walls and organize everything into the cabinets. I’m sure all of his presents will remain in boxes and bags until I get there to help.

But I think it’s important for him to come home every day and feel like he is at home: to walls covered with signs and pictures, and cabinets and drawers full of necessary items (like towels).

Jason still has the same two bath towels I gave him when he went off to college more than 10 years ago, and his idea of decorating is thumb-tacking a Texas A&M flag to his living room wall.

Even though Jason lives in a bachelor pad, there’s no reason it should look like he does. (And with me in charge, it won’t.)

I continue to hold out hope that he will get married one day. He swears he won’t, but I keep hoping he just hasn’t met Ms. Right yet.

Even if he doesn’t, he gave me a grandbaby. And in return, I will give him a nice place to come home to.

I know I got the better end of that deal.