Thanksgiving 2014

"It's all about that baste."  Here's the scene first thing this morning, right about that time when the entire house was beginning to smell like delicious turkey.  Every Thanksgiving without fail, the aroma of this holiday permeates through walls, drifting up and down hallways until the entire house is filled with this most wonderful of fragrances!

It's Thanksgiving, and today was a beautiful one.  It was a cold one, but that's okay - we had the fire in the fireplace, pretty much all day long, and more than enough wood.  Madison woke up this morning a bit concerned that she hadn't completed her list of 27 things she was thankful for.  This was a list she wanted to do at the beginning of November, writing down the things she was thankful for each day until Thanksgiving Day.

Here she is by the fireplace, getting that list done.  She wrote them all down, taking a while to think about each one as she jotted down her answers.  Meanwhile, Mommy was in the kitchen, making her usual masterpieces - like this here:

This is Mommy's cheese hedgehog, a yearly tradition for Thanksgiving.  Ye-Ye dives into this, once someone else has taken the first sampling.  He doesn't want to mess up the appearance, which of course is pretty awesome.  But inevitably, hunger speaks loudest and soon that hedgehog is a distant memory.  Here are a few other friends that join us at the table:

We now have three sets of these, believe it or not.  They are making a comeback at the grocery store, so their hard-to-find value has been downgraded.  We still love them, although we just use one set at the table.  We have about three or four other Thanksgiving salt and pepper shakers that have been donated to us over the years - two that are shaped like acorns, and another set that is a pumpkin and a turkey.  They all line up at the table, along with the name cards - this year, written by Madison.

This is hers.  These are from that Pinkalicious Thanskgiving book.  Inside were cards to fill out, although we had to use the color copier to make about four more this time around.  We had twelve guests today, and Madison filled out everyone's name, putting each card down for our guests.

And here's the table configuration.  This took a bit to figure out.  We didn't want to have the kids - if we can still call them kids - over at some separate table.  We wanted everyone together, so that's what we did.  Mommy and Daddy set up two tables, and put them in an 'L' formation, which seemed to work out for everyone, actually.  And soon enough, everyone arrived!

This was one of the best Thanksgiving Day celebrations we've had - one reason is that Aunt Shain (above) and her family were here with us.  Another reason was the food - Mommy really outdid herself today with some very good cooking.  And the rest of the family brought different items as well, so that there was quite a bit of food.  But with these two guys below, you can imagine there was probably just enough:

We had some nice music playing, a log on the fire, the trees lit up, and lots of conversation to go around.  No talk of politics or sports, so you can imagine things were quite pleasant!  Seriously, it was great to have everyone over.  And we all stayed together for a few hours too, with no one in a rush to get out the door.

Hannah got to experience a more traditional Thanksgiving this year, as I believe it is usually a little bit different each year for her in Florida with her other grandparents.  This time around, she was with Madison, who adores Hannah.  The two were frequently upstairs, checking out all the toys and largely spreading them out over the playroom, bedroom, and eventually the hallway.  We noted this when we went upstairs later - it was as if a Thanksgiving storm had swept in to do damage.

After some pies and ice cream for dessert, it was pretty much time for everyone to go.  It was getting darker, so we said our goodbyes.  Traditionally, we go out to see a movie - but not today.  We were tired, and generally wanted to stay indoors.  And why not?  We kept the fire roaring, and popped in a few Christmas movies.  Madison has been watching "The Santa Clause" movies, and we also watched "The Muppet Christmas Carol" before finally deciding it was time to turn in for the night.

We have so much to be thankful for, including this day itself.  It was a really good one.