Just got back from dinner with my dad & his wife. Her dad his wife were there, as was one of her daughters (the other lives in Arizona), and my brother & SIL and my nephew.
Nice time. I get along with my family well. My dad was supposed to keep our two kids for us until Saturday, as tomorrow happens to be our wedding anniversary. But the day before yesterday, my daughter came down with a head cold. She’s not actually actig sick, but she’s really stuffy and coughing badly. I called my dad yesterday to tell him, and gave him the option to not keep the kids. He said that they’d see how she was when we got there today. They decided not to keep them. My daughter’s cough really is pretty bad, though. I don’t blame them. But, they did give us $20 to pay a sitter (if we can find one) so we can maybe go out tomorrow evening anyway.
The food was great, the company was great, and…there was no football. Woohoo!
I had a wonderful time as well. Good food as always, and my grandmother was there too. She’s in a nursing home now(almost 98) but she held court at my cousin’s house, and we all loved having her.
My cousin read a wonderful letter about her, a copy of which had been forwarded to Grandma from the local school of nursing. You see, back in the early 50’s the nursing school at our hospital assigned all the students a “town mother”, someone they could go to or rely on, as most of the girls were from out of town. So a retired nurse(class of '55) wrote a letter to the school, talking about how wonderful my grandmother had been as a town mother, inviting her to family events, and really going out of her way to be a friend. She told the story because she was donating $1000 in honor of my grandmother, to the scholarship fund of the school. Highlight of the gathering.
I see what’s going on… I started a thread called My Thanksgiving sucks and that inspired you to start a thread to rub in how great your Thanksgiving was. Some people are so insensitive.
Did my worker drone thing, yes even a home health nurse works on the holidays. Got lots of hugs, some gifts and plenty of nice words from my patients.
Then came dinner. Just me and a close friend. We went out to a place called Simba’s, and here’s just a “taste” of what we ate - the usual stuff (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes) plus the unusual stuff (pork tamales, ginger salmon, jambalaya, grits, dirty rice, garlic cream corn to die for, fried chicken, ribs). Unbelievable.
I had no idea I could eat so much. I had strawberry shortcake for dessert, because - gasp - I don’t care for pumpkin pie.
Pretty good. Took the folks to uncle’s house. Cousins and their in-laws cooked; another cousin deep fried a turkey in peanut oil and it came out pretty darned juicy and tender (I ran a thread about this in MPSIMS); kids made a lot of noise but just normal stuff; I sipped at a 50-50 martini and some Fat Bastard chardonnay.
The only bad part is that I wanted to go out and walk off some calories, but the wind was blowing like crazy (a big problem here of late) and the air smelled awful to boot.
Same here! That was the only thing I was really looking forward to and we discovered that it was undercooked. And when we put it back in the oven we burned it! But we had the best ham ever so that made up for it.
Other than B’s BIL talking loudly about how we’re engaged (B’s mother “doesn’t know”, though how she couldn’t now even as B was denying it …) half the time… for part of the rest he was (jokingly, but I only know that now) talking about how anyone who didn’t follow what the Bible said was going to hell, so by definition B and I are…
Gah. I am rather glad B is not keen on seeing many of these people again.
I just had two friends over. The first came over at noon, and we cooked, chatted, and drank coffee and then wine. The second came over around three, and we finished up the dinner. I cooked a turkey with orange slices inside, upside down on a rack, with a salt crust. My first bird, and it turned out excellent; very moist. We also had cheese fondue with bread and veggies, greenbean casserole, “heart attack” potatoes, and cranberry hazelnut sausage stuffing. No pie, which would have been a letdown if we weren’t all totally stuffed. We walked a few laps around the apartment, then came back for dessert wine with orange slices, lingered a while more, cleaned up and called it a night. Very nice and relaxing, and I’m looking forward to lots of turkey sandwiches.
Well, the mashed potatoes were a little too thin, and the gravy was a little too thick. Strangely enough, those two things don’t cancel each other out. Best turkey I’ve ever made; the verdict’s still out on the apple pie.
My T-Day was fantastic, thank you for asking. I started cooking at 7:00am, and by 3:00pm the feast was on the table. Brined turkey, sweet potato casserole, dry-fried green beans & asparagus/with sesame seeds, garlic mashed potatoes, homemade buttermilk rolls and cranberry stuffing. From scratch cranberry sauce with mandarin oranges and walnuts accompanied all. Dessert was pumpkin gooey cake, and pecan pie.
My youngest daughter and her husband came over with my adorable 2-year old granddaughter in tow. The stuff family albums are made of! We watched the Wizard of Oz, and a great time was had by all.
I enjoyed myself immensely, and my sympathies to anyone that had a bad day. Next year, comma’ my house!
I had a VERY GOOD DAY…and I wasn’t expecting it, since there were some ISSUES…
I realized that I had some things to work on in reference to those ISSUES, and I did, and I dealt with them before the mass relatives got there, and everything went VERY well.
I am content…no, I am VERY HAPPY…that everyone had such a good day.
I love my family. My blood family, and my chosen family (you all included) and life is GOOD.
PS…the food turned out PERFECTLY and I finally got my nieces and nephew out of the Cruella DeVille house in “Escape From DeVille Manor” Disney game. They were thrilled. I always love it when they are thrilled. I am now, once again, their favorite aunt. I LOVE that!
We cleaned up the house (which only happens, maybe, a couple times a year) in anticipation of FriendBill and Helen coming over for dinner. Well, Helen, anyway. FriendBill is family, and now that Helen has been over once, so’s she. So next year, we’ll leave the usual mess.
Threw out the dining room rug which the cat has seen fit to pee on repeatedly.
Had a really nice dinner, with homemade bread and everything was simply delish. And Bill brought pumpkin/cognac cheesecake! WOO HOO!!
So after dinner, and a brief walk, we went over to the 'rents for dessert. Most of the fam was there, except my sister SparrowHawk, who lives in Hawaii. The usual silliness prevailed over dessert, coffee, wine and beer. Lots and lots of fun. Can’t wait till Christmas!
Very weird mix of people, including the folks who sold my sister the house a year and a half ago, and their friends. The table conversation didn’t get lively until the two menopausal women who had both been taken off hormones started swapping hot-flash stories.
I had a great Thanksgiving. It was at my house this year (we take turns in my family) and I had 24 people.
I brined the turkey, made some side dishes and the other side dishes and desserts and liquid refreshments were brought by my sisters and my mother.
My BIL was in charge of liquor and brought something called Woodpecker Cider, which was really tasty.
My sister made pies. Pies! Homemade apple pie, pecan pie, and chocolate cream pie and a pumpkin cheesecake.
My 16-year-old niece looked at the table when we were getting dessert ready and said, “Wow. When come back bring pie.”
About half of us laughed like hyenas, and had to explain it to everyone else.
The food was good, the company was great, and we all watched football and The Wizard of Oz and Monsters, Inc. over coffee, beer and way too much dessert.
