Turkey Day 2009

Today we conquered another Thanksgiving holiday and it was wonderful, if I do say so myself. This was going to be a very low-key holiday since most of our immediate families were going to be out of town or with other "sides" of their families. This included both sets of our parents, which we normally celebrate with. No worries--we decided to have our own Thanksgiving with just our little family (Chris, myself and kiddos) and I planned to order one of those "pre-made" meals from our local grocery store. (Hey, if we're going to make it simple, let's REALLY make it simple, right??) Chris changed my mind, however, when he announced his plans to cook a turkey by himself. This is something neither he nor I have ever done and since I always assumed it was hard to cook a turkey, I was a little bit leery of this turning out well. So, off Chris went and bought a big ol' 15-pound turkey. I, once again, was a little surprised by this when all of a sudden, my mom called and asked if she and my brother could join us for Thanksgiving dinner since they decided not to go out of town. Whew! Not only were we going to have more people to gobble up this turkey (don't mind the pun....) but we'd also get to spend Thanksgiving with some family, which is what we always love.

On to Thanksgiving Day. We woke up and relaxed, relaxed, relaxed. Have I mentioned yet that Chris decided to do a "dry-brine" method with the turkey so it sat in our fridge "brining" for 4 days??? I told him that he, and only he, was in charge of this turkey because I was going to make some other side dishes. (He was fine with that, and a little bit excited to see how it would all turn out with the turkey.) I stayed in my bathrobe until well past lunchtime, really making my point that this day was going to be VERY low-key and VERY relaxing. As it turns out, I ended up getting a spurt of the "decorating bug". I had gotten really cute placemats and cloth napkins on clearance the day before, and also picked up a gorgeous bouquet of fall-colored flowers when I was finishing my errands. Then, I remembered that I had gotten some really cute place-card holders a couple months ago and decided that this was the perfect opportunity to use them. That's when I got a little crazy!! :) If we have place-card holders, then I should probably whip up some place-cards, right??


And I might as well pull out my late-grandmother's relish dish, too....


And while we're at it, let's use the good china, shall we???


So, as you can see, I got a little out of control with the "Thanksgiving spirit" of things, but I had fun doing it, that's for sure!! :) And guess what? The turkey turned out PERFECTLY. Chris is the turkey-master and we didn't even know it!


The turkey was so fabulous that there were barely any left-overs. I think I'll be asking Chris to prepare another turkey again soon now that I know he's got the knack for it!!

We were so happy to be able to share this special day with my mom and Ben.


We are so thankful for all of our family and our friends. We are so blessed and thank God every day for the wonderful gifts He has given us.

I just have to end with this cute picture that was taken as Ben and my mom were loading up their car to leave. All of the "kids" were watching out the window because they didn't want them to leave! :)


We hope that all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year, as well. Happy Thanksgiving!!