So, uh, Happy Thanksgiving! Last Week! Do I have any pictures? No, of course not, but really, they'd be pretty much the same as anyone else's, right? Lots of food, people, and dirty dishes. It was a nice day, though. It was a Romney year - my side of the family. Almost everyone was there - we missed you Adam &Whit - and we all seemed to have a pretty good time. My dad made the best turkey breast I have ever had. Normally, I'm a dark meat kind of a girl. The white stuff is always just so dry. My dad bought a pressure cooker for the occasion, and frankly, I was initially horrified. I just imagined boiled poultry and my stomach turned. (Sorry for the lack of faith, Dad.) How wrong I was. My dad layered it with a little stuffing, put some liquid in, and set it to cook. Pressure cookers rock. That meat was done in under 25 minutes, counting the time it took to heat up the pot. And the meat was fantastic. Everything else was great too. I made stuffing, salad, and a pretty great cranberry orange pie. Oh. Yum. I could use a piece of that right now.
You know, there's something about Thanksgiving that's just anti-climactic. We put all this money, time, planning and effort into dinner. We use the best ingredients and carefully choose our recipes. We spend hours cleaning and setting the table and cooking. And in the end, our stomachs aren't any bigger on that day than on any other day of the year. Dinner is still over in a flash. Okay, maybe some of you people can stretch it out, but for us, we were all full after 20 minutes of eating! Of course, we still spent the rest of the day together talking, napping, playing games and just being together. Which is really the point. Still. I don't feel done with the big turkey dinner thing and just might have to make another one just for us to enjoy again. Besides, Stomper was a little sad that he didn't get an actual turkey drumstick to gnaw away on. I wonder if a whole bird will fit in dad's cooker....
Earlier in the week, Troy and I had the chance to go to Stomper's class for a little performance they put on of all these little nursery rhymes they had been practicing. Not quite ready for Broadway, but we sure thought it was cute.
And in an unprecedented display of holiday spirit, I actually pulled out the Christmas boxes the day after Thanksgiving. I was a little confused myself. What are these things I'm feeling? Holiday cheer? Good will towards men? I didn't know what to do with myself! The real reason we pulled stuff out was because we have this great Noah's ark advent calendar that my mom gave us a few years ago and I always miss like the first 10 days because that's when we usually decorate. Oh, not this year! I had it out and ready to go. Thank you, thank you.
So I'm all hyped up on Christmas Spirit. It's a little alarming, but strangely pleasureable. And we don't even have snow yet. In fact, we're in the upper 50's. The kids and I have already enjoyed watching the early airings of Rudolf and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, along with my new holiday favorite, Shrek the Halls. I know, you might not normally think of Shrek as being a great holiday kind of show, but I really love it. Not only is it pretty dang funny, but it speaks volumes as to how I often mistakenly handle Christmas. It's all about how frustrated Shrek gets when he can't pull off 'the perfect Christmas' and how everyone ruins his pretty picture of what he thinks it's supposed to be like. But then Donkey very wisely says, "Hey, it's not Christmas unless someone's crying!" (true) and Shrek learns that however you do Christmas IS the perfect Christmas. It's messy, chaotic and stressful, but that's how it is and we love it. Misty tried to help me understand this concept already - I guess I just speak 'Shrek' better than 'Grown-Up."
I hope everyone had a great T-day and is feeling as lovey and excited as I am about Christmas!
2 comments:
glad you had a good Thanksgiving. I've been missing pie(s) as well.
The kids look great!
Our Thanksgiving was anti-climatic as well. We were with my moms (very un-religious) family this year. As soon as the food was done, there was a "Come and get it," and it was over. No blessing on the food, no moment to pause and remember the things we were thankful for, nothing. It felt weird.
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