Thanksgiving 2020

Well, it's only a week after Thanksgiving...

We had a lovely holiday. 

Although I enjoy having people over, and I like cooking for people, I had pretty much decided not to invite anyone. Initially this was mostly because I couldn't decide who to invite—our new friends who have kids the ages of my older kids, or our dear friends who have a lot of little kids (and a few who are the ages of our younger girls). But then we were all being told we couldn't have more than ten people in our homes because of...

Well, despite that, I thoroughly intended to have Jason and Adreanna in our home (duh!) which brought our count to eleven, and I invited Bruce's dad, too. 

I never know if anyone will want to make the three-hour drive to come for dinner (we are three hours from everything), so I was delighted that Dad accepted our invitation. He came out on Wednesday, just in time to see our finished gingerbread house before we whisked it off to the contest. (Which reminds me—again—that today is the last day I can go retrieve it. I wonder what I'll do with it now. ?)

I did manage to make all the pies, and the baklava on Wednesday after the gingerbread house was turned in. This is largely due to my family cleaning up the gingerbread mess, and Dad buying us dinner from Subway that night. In fact, things seemed to be going so well that I ignored my planned schedule and got started on the turkey a little late on Thursday. So dinner was about an hour later than I had intended, but it was all good. We enjoyed the time visiting together while the bird was in the oven.

There I am, doing the last-minute stuff.
Or maybe just washing my hands.
Notice all the post-its on my cabinets?
Those are new recipes I've used
in the last year or so.

This year's menu was a little simpler than usual. For the last...three years or so I've thought that Thanksgiving dinner, while yummy, is soooo laden with ultra-rich foods that it's almost too much. So this year instead of a veggie tray accompanied by a creamy dip, I opted for a salad of spring greens, apples, bacon, and toasted pecans with a maple-dijon vinaigrette. Delicious! And instead of the traditional green bean casserole (which is always home-made, none of that canned stuff!)...instead of the casserole I made roasted green beans. It was just right; it lightened the dinner up just enough to make the desserts in the evening a little more enjoyable. At least I thought so.

Our table only seats ten. So we set up another table in the great room and seated six people at each table.
(You can see Dad in the top left corner, visiting with Bruce and the kids while they wait for dinner.)

After dinner Dad told us stories about when he was younger, and about his mission to Peru. And we sang (mostly Christmas songs) together. And then pie, and a little more visiting.

I fell asleep as soon as I got into bed that night. And slept in until ...maybe 8:30 the next morning. Dad stopped by a little later, before he headed back home (with some pumpkin pie and some turkey, of course!). We really enjoyed having him with us.

Traditionally the day after Thanksgiving is our "Decorate the House" day, but I think this year we were all a little tired out. We managed to bring the boxes up from the crawl space, and we got some nativity sets put up, and that's about it. We may have played some games; we may have watched a movie. Bruce and I did walk to Cobble Rock Park (about four blocks from our house) to pick up our prize for the gingerbread house. We had leftovers for dinner, and more pie for dessert, and I went to bed early that night. 

I think we finally finished getting the tree put up and decorated on Sunday. :-)

After going to bed around 9:30 Sunday, and sleeping in until almost 10:00 on Monday, I was fully recovered. Thanksgiving week was filled with long, long, busy days, but it's worth it. 

I love to spend time with my family!