Blessed Beyond Measure

Thanksgiving evokes warm memories of time spent in my grandma's home, watching the Macy's parade and eating lots of delicious food.  As a child it was one of my favorite holidays.  I suppose that was because of the family togetherness, the fact that Christmas was now even closer and because of the food.  Let's face it, I've always been into good food.  There was never stress involved, because all I did was show up.  Grandma did the lion's share of the cooking and my mom (and us girls when we got older), helped out on Thanksgiving morning. This is how I remember it anyway.

I still love Thanksgiving, but can't say it's stress free anymore.  Man, it's a lot of work.  Three days of cooking.  It's a good thing I like to cook or we'd be in trouble.  This year I decided to throw an extra little thing, like a 5k in the mix, because I didn't think I had enough to do.  Ha!  It all worked out just fine and we had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  The key was to start early and work steadily.  Prior to Thanksgiving day, I made the rolls and the desserts. 

 I baked the pumpkin pie, the triple chocolate pound cake and assembled the apple dumplings.  The pound cake was a new addition to the dessert line up this year, because I wanted some chocolate.  Pumpkin and apple is all fine and good, but a feast isn't a feast, unless there's some good chocolate present.

I made the cranberry sauce and the turkey stock (for the gravy), baked the cornbread for the dressing, the sweet potatoes for the casserole and put that bird in the brine.  The last thing I did on Wednesday, was set the table.  I hadn't given a thought to a centerpiece, so I just rummaged around and found a pretty little pumpkin (on the front porch) and some squashes in storage and voila.  It was rustic and that's the way I like it.

Early Thanksgiving morning, I put the turkey in the oven and left my husband with good instructions, to babysit, or I guess I should say birdsit.  Then I took off to meet Tara for the Turkey Trot.

She made a turkey feather skirt and found these cute socks for us to wear.  I'll just say I was a little apprehensive about the costume thing, but it turned out to be fun and we weren't the only ones there in costume.

We met up with Whitney at the beginning of the race, but she left us behind at the starting line.  She's a real runner.  Need I say more?

Here we go!

We did a combination of fast walking and jogging.  I've been having some problems with my feet, so I couldn't go all out.  Our plan was to have fun, not necessarily win the race!  We didn't even time ourselves.  It was so much fun and even though it seemed a little crazy to try and fit this in around the preparations for the feast, it was totally worth it.  I felt so good when I got back home, knowing that I had been outdoors on a beautiful morning and had started the day with exercise.  Now I could eat!

We even made it in the Times News.

Mark did an excellent job in my absence.  He baked the apple dumplings and the turkey to perfection.  The dumplings were my grandma's special Thanksgiving dessert, and even though no one else would probably mind if I didn't make them, it makes me happy to have them on the dessert table.  Aren't they pretty?

After a quick shower, I was ready to put on my apron and get back to work in the kitchen.  The dressing, turkey, sweet potato casserole and apple dumplings were baked.  I left the green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy and brussels sprouts to the end.

Look at the way my husband carves the turkey!  We found this demonstration on Youtube a few years ago and he's been doing it ever since.  No more hacking around the bones as we had done for years, resulting in a platter of pulled turkey.  Now the platter has nicely sliced white meat on one end and dark on the other.

Dillon's plate is artistically arranged, with a tiny bit of cranberry sauce on his turkey.  He doesn't like it, but tries some every year, thinking it might grow on him.  This was not the year.

Before we started the meal, I had to snap a few pictures.  Of course I did.  Grandma and Grandpa are in their regular seats.

We had two visitors around our table, Kenzie's fiancee, James, and Jantzen's girlfriend, Emily. We were happy to have them!  Of course, we missed Travis and his family, but they were cooking a Thanksgiving meal in their home.  We talked to them later in the day and watched Margeaux jumping around on the furniture.  She may have had one too many M&M's.

Happy Thanksgiving 2016.

We are blessed beyond measure.

And I'm a little tired.