When your kids grow up and move away from home, the Holidays become unusual. Sometimes you get them all home, and sometimes you don’t get any of them and have to do things a bit differently.
This Thanksgiving I had 1 son, minus the grandson as he was with his mom, my boyfriend (Mr. M), and his son. It was just the four of us so a pretty quiet day. I still did all the fixings, just not as much of each. The rest of the boys were coming home for a quick weekend the day after so at least they got to eat the leftovers.
Although sometimes we raise our own turkeys, we did not this year. I picked up our turkey from the grocery store. I roast mine in the oven with a delicious herb cornbread stuffing which I have been making for many years.
Often times when we have a large crowd for Thanksgiving, we will cook up 3 turkeys – 1 gets roasted, 1 gets fried, and 1 gets smoked. A few years ago we had a little contest to see which was the favorite.
I don’t remember which one won, However, I have to say, that they all tasted good in there own way. I think everyone had a different favorite for different reasons. Oh and these were home raised turkeys which tasted even better.
At those large Thanksgiving dinners we also move the table outside – well sorta. We enclose a section of the porch in plastic, lay down some carpet to help with heat retention, set up some folding tables and chairs, and bring in a couple of portable heaters. It makes it nice to be able to have a large group without having everyone cramped in the house.
The rest of the traditional Thanksgiving fixings in our house are mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans and bacon, homemade rolls with butter, Mr. M’s deviled eggs, and of course the green pistachio pudding salad with marachino cherries on top. When we have a larger gathering, we usually have more side dishes as well. Can never have too much food, right?
I love it when most of the food on the table comes from my own garden or hands. The potatoes and green beans came out of the garden. The eggs came from my chickens. A lot of the ingredients for the stuffing was also grown in the garden. The rolls were homemade.
Top it off with some wine or apple cider and Thanksgiving dinner was a success.
Yes, that is china, silver and crystal on that table. The nicer dishes always come out on the holidays regardless of how many people are in attendance. It definitely makes things a bit more festive, especially when you dim the lights and light the candles. Love it!
Football can’t be forgotten as a Thanksgiving event. If the kids are all home, a morning football game is always in the works – or a snowball fight depending on the weather. Mr. M’s team, the Cowboys, always play on Thanksgiving so after dinner and cleanup everyone watches football while they digest their food.
I wouldn’t trade a good family Thanksgiving for anything in the world. I do believe it may be my favorite holiday, even with all the food prep taking place.
As if are bellies weren’t full enough, then comes dessert. Pies, oh the pies. Lots of pies. Thanksgiving dessert for us is always pies. Many different types of pies. More pies than we can literally eat – but we like variety. So this year we had pumpkin, of course. The pumpkin of which came from home grown pumpkins. We had chocolate cream. We had blueberry. We had apple. We had Mr. M’s favorite pecan. I didn’t get photos of them all, but I think you get the picture. They were just delicious! All topped with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. Mmmm mmm!
How was your Thanksgiving? Did you get to spend it with family and friends? I hope it was wonderful!