Thanksgiving 2013: Featuring Lots Of Football And Turkey

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and Christmas season is upon us. In all likelihood, that means you'll be seeing precious little of me on the blog this month, and a slew of Christmas-related posts in early January. But I'll see if I can keep up.

The beautiful view from my in-laws' beautiful backyard

For the first time in a while, we didn't host Thanksgiving dinner at our house. Nathan's parents, Glenn & Sandy Barrett, took on the hosting duties for us. Nathan's brother Ryan, his wife Judy, and their son Cameron also came into town, so our meal was a family affair (albeit missing a few other siblings and their families. Nate's family is pretty big and it's hard to get everyone together, so we do the best we can).

Even though our family didn't host the Big Meal this year, I still bought a turkey for our own use at another time. I guess I just like to cook turkey once a year or so! As it turned out, we ended up using the turkey two days before Thanksgiving; we cooked it for the sister missionaries serving in our ward. We thought it would be a good way to give the sisters some leftovers, since they didn't have a whole lot of dinner appointments that week (lots of people out of town, etc.).

I decided to go easy on this turkey, and I didn't make bread stuffing. Instead, I stuffed the turkey's insides with some usual flavorings (herbs, onions, garlic, celery), and some not-so-usual flavorings (a quartered orange...a friend told me it was a delicious way to prepare turkey).

Here's what my house looked like for most of the afternoon (and yes, it smelled wonderful and it was very distracting when I was trying to teach piano lessons):

And here's the finished turkey:

I can't say the oranges had any great impact on the meal; the turkey was nice and moist, but didn't taste very "citrus-y" in my opinion. It was delicious anyway, though.

Unlike "actual" Thanksgiving, I didn't go overboard on the side dishes that night. I did try one new dish...these roasted carrots & parsnips. I thought they were delicious, and the girls liked them too. I don't usually have parsnips lying around, though, so I don't know how often I'll be making it.

The sister missionaries were very happy with the dinner, which made me happy for them. We sent a lot of leftovers home with them as well; hopefully it helped them get through the week.

Finally, it was Thursday...the official Turkey Day. We actually spent most of the morning lazing around at our house, while I cooked the few side dishes I was responsible for (a strawberry-rhubarb pie; the sweet-potato souffle; and an orange tapioca gelatin salad). The kids had a lot of fun watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (I'm glad I got them started on that tradition!). And for a short while at least, they were able to watch the National Dog Show on NBC as well. I am a total sucker for dog shows, and it was hard not to sit down and watch the whole thing with them.

Finally, we pulled ourselves away from the TV, loaded ourselves (and our car) with food, and headed over the river (wash) and through the woods (pecan orchards) to Grandmother's house!

I am sorry to say I didn't take any pictures of the actual feast; but trust me, it was delicious. Nathan's mother is an amazing cook, and everything was wonderful. I went back for seconds and thoroughly enjoyed everything. Ryan and Judy were great company, and it was nice to sit and watch football for a while afterwards, letting our stomachs expand and slowly drifting in and out of consciousness.

In completely random news: I noticed that this picture on the wall behind the dining room table appeared to have stegosauri running along its border. Certainly a weird choice for an Old West-style abstract canvas, but whatever floats the artist's boat, I guess. Yes, these are the things I notice when I am descending into a turkey coma.

The girls had a lot of fun playing with their cousin Cameron that day; at one point we tucked them all into the guest bed together to watch a movie, so the adults could have some unwinding time:

After some relaxing, we all ate a bunch of pie (I had three small slices of blueberry, strawberry-rhubarb, and pumpkin), and then made our way home. We were preparing ourselves for a big weekend with friends and family. But our Thanksgiving Day was wonderful and we were very grateful for the opportunity to be served by family. It was a little weird not to host dinner, but pretty nice too...it made the whole day a lot more laid-back and relaxing! Thank goodness for kind family members and their excellent cooking.

Now, on with the rest of the holiday season!