Thanksgiving 2015, AKA: A Tale Of Three Turkeys

I've been away from the blog for a month! Of course, that is totally normal considering the time of year....and the stress ain't over yet! But seeing as how I'm halfway through December, I thought it might be nice to blog about our Thanksgiving before Christmas is upon us. Hopefully I'll stay caught up, but there will likely be another lull in the blog during the holiday break. A mom's gotta have her rest! But sooner or later I'll update this sucker again with all our holiday happenings. But first, a recap of our Turkey Day!

My little helpers; they get more useful every Thanksgiving!

Our last few Thanksgivings have been very similar, which is not a bad thing...the familiarity has brought with it a great deal of comfort and happiness. It's nice to have the family togetherness and good food to look forward to every year. This year's Thanksgiving was looking to be much like last year's...Ryan, Judy and Cameron would be coming from Colorado to stay with Sandy, and Grandma Barrett would host Thanksgiving dinner at her house. I would do my Black Friday shopping; Nathan would golf with his siblings; a variety of family shenanigans would ensue.

For the most part, all those things still came to pass, with one major exception. With Thanksgiving Day just a week away, Nathan called from work and informed me that we, not his mother, would be hosting the Thanksgiving dinner that year. Under most circumstances, that would be fine with me; I enjoy hosting Thanksgiving. It is tiring to cook all that food, but still very exciting and rewarding! Plus, everyone felt the kids would be better occupied at our house than they would at Grandma's (after all, we have more toys than Grandma, not to mention a Wii and a trampoline).

They were thrilled to be putting their hands into a dead bird

There was just one problem with taking on the hosting duties...just the day before, I'd already bought not one, but two frozen turkeys, neither of which were big enough for our family's Thanksgiving dinner! Since I'd assumed I wouldn't be hosting Thanksgiving, I'd agreed to cook a turkey for Aurora's kindergarten class, which was hosting its own "Thanksgiving feast" the Friday before the holiday. What can I say? I love to cook turkey! I figured if I wasn't going to cook turkey on actual Thanksgiving, I could cook a turkey for a bunch of kindergartners and then devour the leftovers on my own time. But I didn't stop there...I also bought a second, smaller turkey (by "small" I mean 12 pounds or so), to be devoured sometime later on in the winter. I'd probably marinate this smaller turkey to give it a more exotic flavor than a traditional Thanksgiving bird.

And now, I had to buy a third turkey...sigh. It's a good thing I was in the process of prepping the kindergarten class's turkey to cook the following morning. Otherwise, I wouldn't have had room in my freezer! (Seriously, does anyone have room in their freezer for three frozen turkeys?). Sandy graciously offered to pay for the turkey, so it was a simple matter to buy another. But in the meantime, I had a 15-pound bird to get ready for a school banquet!

Instead of making a bread stuffing for the school's turkey, I tried stuffing it with apples, per the suggestion of a friend of mine (I also added some onions too). I was curious to see if this would sweeten the meat. In the end, the turkey meat didn't taste like apples; however, the meat was very moist and flavorful, and I'm sure the apples had something to do with that.

None of the kindergarteners (or their parents) cared too much about the cooking details, though; they were all too busy stuffing their faces!

Most parents had signed up to bring some side dish or another, and it turned out to be quite an impressive feast. There was more than enough food for everyone (and more than enough turkey left over to make turkey stew at our house over that weekend, as Lorelai had earlier requested).

 

While Aurora's class was mainly focused on feasting, Celeste's class mixed it up a bit with a short movie and a "thankfulness tree" the kids decorated themselves. I brought a small side dish for the second-grade class, but I wasn't able to stay in that class for long (I was needed to cut up the turkey!). All the girls had a fun last day of school before the break, though...and all got to eat a lot of yummy food doing it.

Our charter school takes the entire week of Thanksgiving off, which I love. It gives us time to relax a little, as well as get more prepared for company to arrive. We honestly didn't do much during those days off; the girls and I saw a movie in theaters (The Peanuts Movie, an adaptation of the Charles Schultz comics. I'm happy to say it was true to the spirit of the original comics and was a sweet, enjoyable film!).

We baked a few pies and made a few side dishes ahead of time. Grandma Barrett made four pies, which left us with only two to worry about...a mixed-berry pie (a must-have tradition every Thanksgiving), and another apple pie (in case you can't tell, we all like apple pie!).

The pies turned out great! After that, it was time to prep our "actual" Thanksgiving turkey, with its "actual" stuffing.

Thanksgiving Day itself proceeded much as it always does. I was busy in the kitchen most of the morning; the kids watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and the dog show on television (at least until the adults showed up and turned on football); Nathan went golfing with his brother Ryan; the girls had fun playing with cousin Cameron; and Sandy and Judy provided invaluable assistance in finishing up the last several dishes.

 It was quite a spread, when all was said and done. The kids made themselves more useful than usual this year by setting the table nicely (they even set out place-cards and properly sorted the silverware! Good for them).

We cooked most of our usual favorite staples (turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, sweet potato souffle, green bean casserole, orange ambrosia salad, cranberry sauce, etc.).

 

 

 

Sandy and Judy contributed the rolls, most of the pies, a large vegetable tray, and a tasty apple-walnut salad.

I did try one new recipe this year...it was a "creamed-corn casserole" that ended up being fluffy, creamy and delicious. It also had a little southwestern kick, since it included chopped green chiles! We will definitely be making again in the future.

 

 Needless to say, everyone ate and ate and ate until we could eat no more.

 

 

 Then we lounged around (or slept) lazily through the afternoon, before taking a walk together around the lake and then going our separate ways.

But our family weekend wasn't over yet! True, I went solo much of the following day, getting my Black Friday shopping done. And Nathan had a golfing date with a friend in our LDS ward; they tried out a well-known golf course that our friend had free passes for. Grandma and Judy graciously took our girls for a few hours; they fed them some lunch, and then took them out for a movie with their cousin Cameron. They were in heaven. By the time we all reunited in the evening, everyone was tired, but filled with a sense of accomplishment.

 

The following day we managed to stick together more as a family. We spent a few hours at Get Air, an indoor trampoline gym close to downtown Tucson. None of the adults paid for the privilege of jumping (because we are all old and decrepit), but the kids had a blast.

By amazing coincidence, some friends of ours decided to visit Get Air at the same time we did! Alissa is one of Celeste's best friends, so they were very excited to see each other. Logan, who is Aurora's age, tolerates Aurora's romantic advances but is sometimes wearied by our aggressively cuddly youngest daughter. No matter, though...they were all here to jump!

 

Most of my pictures were quite blurry...my girls weren't holding still long enough to get many clear shots!

There were a few "firsts" for this trip to Get Air. This was the first time the giant inflatable "hamster balls" were available to use, and the kids enjoyed getting inside them and knocking each other around.

 

This was also the first time my girls have tried the "Ninja Warrior"-style obstacle course in the back of the gym. They all loved it, and they all made it through the course with varying degrees of success and speed.

Things got a little hairy when we encouraged the girls to compete against each other, though. We thought it would be a fun way to push themselves to excel. However, we completely underestimated their competitive spirits; Celeste raced against her friend and dissolved into a jealous ball of despair when she came in second place. Aurora and Lorelai (both of whom very successfully navigated the obstacle course on their own) became vicious rivals, sniping at each other (in Lorelai's case) and crying rage-tears and screaming incoherently (in Aurora's case).

 

Lesson learned; next time, we'll just let the girls do their own thing on that obstacle course! Cousin Cameron wisely stayed out of the whole mess, keeping himself busy on the trampolines.

It's a good thing food can heal many wounds; after putting our shoes back on, we left Get Air and went to The Fix for lunch, a restaurant that specializes in different kinds of macaroni and cheese. It was a clever idea (even if I am not the world's biggest pasta fan), and everyone left satisfied. The Fix is located close to the University of Arizona campus, so we walked off our meal a bit by checking out some of the holiday decorations.

Not long after that, we had to bid Ryan, Judy, and Cameron farewell; they had a long drive to Colorado ahead of them the next day. Our family spent most of that afternoon relaxing at home; after the busy weekend, we'd earned it! We were grateful to spend Thanksgiving with our loved ones and have a few fun outings together.

One of these years, we may mix things up a bit and travel to either Utah or Colorado for Thanksgiving. But we always love celebrating this sweet, simple holiday at home as well. As much as I love Christmas, Thanksgiving is (in some ways) the better holiday, for being relatively uncomplicated and more tightly focused on counting our blessings. I have more things to be thankful for than I have space to write in this blog post; however, I am grateful for every opportunity to reflect on those blessings. Happy Thanksgiving to all; here's hoping we make it through Christmas!