Giving Thank Y'alls

Thanksgiving is usually quite the gluttonous day for us.  Since moving here, we try to get a wild turkey, but for reasons not quite understood, the benevolent DNR has decided that there aren’t enough turkeys around to justify a hunt.  For the past TWO years.  What a crock.  They must be counting turkey numbers in the town square because we (and other’s we’ve talked with) seem to be overwhelmed with the buggers. But I regress….

Turkey (store bought - again), a honey-baked ham, potato something-or-other, dressing, cranberry sauce, rolls, gravy, pie.  And of course, green bean casserole.  Is it even Thanksgiving without a green bean casserole?  I know my Mom is sick of it, even at once a year (maybe twice, I’m lucky if I can swing it again at Christmas), but I LOVE the stuff.   I could eat it once a week.  Really.

Since I’ve been old enough to host dinner, the cranberry sauce has been homemade.  It only takes a bag of cranberries, some water, sugar & about 15 minutes on the stove.  How could you NOT want to have freshly made cranberry sauce?  For reasons unknown to me, I think my Dad still prefers the canned stuff (ick, ick, icky!).  I have vivid memories of Thanksgiving’s past when the table would be set with Crazy Aunt Harriet’s finest dinnerware, a beautiful turkey, all the fixings…..and then the canned cranberry glop.  And it would be placed ceremoniously on one of the fine serving dishes, tell-tale ribbed markings still highly visible on the gelatinous mass.  Would it have killed somebody to just mash it up a bit so it at least LOOKS like it just wasn’t plopped out of a tin can???

We were hoping to have a large crowd this year, but our friends from Chicago couldn’t make it & a few other local guests we invited opted out.  Makes me wonder if it’s me or something.  Hmmmm.  Or it could be that I threatened my city-friend that I was going to serve woodchuck & goat instead of a Butterball.  The locals probably would HAVE come if I told them that.  So it was just Paul, Rhiannon, Grandma & Grandpa and me.  Although I still cooked for an army.  Can you say “Leftovers”?!?

Anyways.  All this heavy-duty eating eventually leads me to my favorite spot; the couch.  I think there is a picture after every Thanksgiving & Christmas dinner of me comatose on the couch.  Regardless of which house we happen to be at.  So if you ever invite me over for a Holiday Feast, make sure you have an extra couch for me to continue my “Oh my god I can’t believe I ate that much” tradition. 

So there I lay, and I think about how wonderful it is to have a loving family, great friends and a home in the country. 

Thank you Paul for putting up with my sometimes questionable homesteading antics.

Thank you Mom for giving me that extra push to get some of those “I’ll do it eventually” projects done (or at least started). But thank you most of all for you being a wonderful Grandma !

Thank you Dad & Christine for understanding my decision to move over 600 miles away from the both of you.  And for making the horribly long trips here to visit me.

Thank you Wally for taking the time to snap all those wonderful photos of Rhiannon (that I never remember to take).

Thank you Kathy for not ostracizing me because of my change of residence.  Oh, and for all those chocolates.  And the closet full of outfits for Rhiannon.

And to the rest of my family and friends, thanks for all those other things that I’m just too ignorant to remember.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

I’m going back to the couch now.