Now that it's almost over .... what did you get up to on your thanksgiving?

Sounds good, Saab.

I'm still thinking about the tryptophan in turkey.. wonder if taking tryptophan along on an overseas plane ride could be any help with jet lag. Turkey induced dreams on the plane could be a good thing if one is in the cattle car class.

Our Thanksgiving preparations began a couple of weeks ago. For years we've been going to a small town in Alabama where my mother and two of my siblings live. Mom is under the weather this year so we concocted a plan where my wife would be the master chef and my brother would host at his small, cozy home. I'm one of four and between all of us, there are fourteen children between 2 and 17 years old so we are a full house. We leave on Tuesday for the drive with texts flying back and forth on grocery supplies as my sister-in-law is getting progressively more frantic. Just as she's about to buy a small turkey and a ham (because the big turkeys are gone) my mother steps in with a 25+ lb mutant bird and volunteers to cook the monster. Everyone gets into town on Wednesday and Thursday starts off with a chocolate chip pancake breakfast. Everyone shows up, the ping pong table goes up in the yard, the cousins all pair off by age, the basketballs and frisbees appear and the baking begins. Multiple casseroles, side dishes, pies, bread, etc - the oven is never empty. My brothers and I rotate making emergency grocery runs as yet another missing ingredient threatens to derail the feast. I slip away from getting pounded in ping pong by my ten year old nephew to borrow a couple of eight foot long folding tables and a pickup truck full of folding chairs. We set up banquet hall style with a long table stretching the length of the house and someone produces paper table clothes with turkeys on them . Mom shows up with a huge pan holding a steaming hot bird. As "man of the house", my wife assigns my youngest brother to cut the turkey, but he's never done it before. I look over his shoulder advising and stealing samples for hungry children who know that Uncle Engineer is a soft touch. Then the women kick everyone out of the house and have them line up in the garage so they can enter and eat. Everyone shivers in the brisk air for a quick prayer then the line starts to move. There is turkey and ham, veggie dishes with sweet potatoes or broccoli or green beans all of which seem more like desserts than sides, fresh baked bread with store bought rolls to make up the inevitable shortfall. Pies, cookies and brownies are safely out of the way so that my brothers and I will not set bad examples for the children. Picture twenty four people around long tables with parents helping toddlers, condiments and plastic eating utensils being passed around and continuous shout outs to the cooks for every dish. After seconds comes the desserts. Pecan and pumpkin pies plus a chocolate nut dish that sends all my taste buds into maximum sensory overload. All the plastic dishes get trashed and the tables cleared away then the young girl contingent breaks out a Wii dancing game. Soon ten people are trying to dance in time with a stick figure on the screen while the rest of us alternately cheer and laugh. I make of fool of myself to 'Can't Touch This" and someone claims there is a video for posterity (don't look to see it posted here.) Everyone turns in early since tomorrow is a big day. Black Friday family tradition holds that the women hit the stores at 6:00 AM while the men have childcare duties. Friday night will be lasagna plus inter-family gift exchange for the children, plus the local high school team is playing in the state semi-finals Friday night and my niece is in the band so we all have to go and cheer.

That was my Thanksgiving.

Wowsa! Great reporting!




So, the chocolate nut dish.....

Glad to hear that, Letty.

Have finished cooking, but still eating leftovers. Today I had crackers with hummous and salami and a small piece of chocolate cake for breakfast. It's a sunny Sunday here and I'm sitting here thinking that I'd like to go out walking for the day, but need to be here to eat some of this food...I think I'll go on the walk and direct the kids to eat nothing but leftovers while I'm gone.

I do get homesick, but I've lived for six years basically missing my mom and dad every day, so I'm used to it. I bought irises to have on the table so it would be like my dad was with me. Irises were his favorite flower.

Our celebration was wonderful. There were people from 9-90 here. I cooked the turkey, stuffing, sweet and mashed potatoes, gravy, pumpkin and pecan pies, an apple crumble, and a chocolate cake and each person brought their favorite vegetable so we ended up with cauliflower and cheese, purple cabbage, salad, carrots, and peas. It was a lovely meal with wonderful friends and brought tears of thankfulness to my eyes.
The little girls worked on training my dog - that brought me to tears with laughter.
It was a perfect day.

Ive gotten really annoyed that Thanksgiving has become a mere "opening" act for Christmas Ahopping. Further, I dont remember ,as a kid, that our Christmmas shopping habits were put up on a score card.

I dont give a **** and dont feel a bit guilty.

That's what Thanksgiving should be - great report engineer! You've painted us a Norman Rockwell picture here, very nice!

wonderful

WE WANT THE VIDEO!!!

Yes, we do!

Wonderful late posts, engineer & Aidan.

What interesting is that there has not been a single post from any grumps who found thanksgiving all a bit much.
But it's never too late to whine & kvetch, you know!

Sorry, just watched the video and it is going into a deep vault with thick locks. There is a reason I'm an engineer and not a dancer.

ha.

Well damn, engineer! You're such a let-down!

What a nice thread, people telling stories in a positive way, being part of somebody´s life....I really enjoyed it.
Not one single dish with sour grapes...

That's actually rather touching..

reminds me of a new yorker cartoon with two turkeys in flight, one saying to the other, "I've never been south before". Can't cite it since I saw it long ago and it's just stuck with me as a cartoon.

I admit I like that.

In a parallel universe......

now this very nice thanksgiving thread had to be destroyed by sarcastic pictures. Typical a2k, awful if something should stay just plain nice.

Probably would have been fun in another connection.