It wasn't easy to come to the decision to go to St. George for the Thanksgiving holiday. Our state was just ending a two-week mandate from the governor to limit gatherings more than ever and to quarantine as much as possible. The mandate was lifted in time for Thanksgiving, but there were a lot of recommendations for people to not see family. We felt pretty guilty. But we also felt the deep need to be with my brother and his family and to get away for a while. We had many discussions with no conclusions but some occasional tears as we were deciding. Finally we came to the conclusion that if we basically quarantined ourselves for two weeks before we went we would feel comfortable going, and that's just what we did.
The break was a very welcome one. We missed a lot of our traditions - I especially missed my annual pie-making date with my friend Emily the day before Thanksgiving. But that's just how this year has been. I made a pie by myself and was a little sad, even though I tried a new crust recipe and loved it and a new pie recipe and loved that too.
We headed down on Wednesday afternoon. We arrived in the early evening and they had put a lot of effort into getting the house all decked out in Christmas decorations. It was quite a spectacular sight, actually, to pull up to the house and get the full effect of the beautiful lights strung up and looking like they had been put up just for us. The inside was lovely too, with their Christmas tree up, plus my dad's wooden tree hanging in their stairwell with the brass ornaments on it that my Grandma Romney sent us grandkids every year. Peter's didn't quite cover the whole thing, so after the trip I decided to donate my ornaments to him and sent them down, keeping one or two extra special ones for myself. I loved seeing dad's tree hanging up. This was the first time that Troy and Chase got to see the Romney's new house, and that was fun to show it to them.
Chase was a good sport - he brought some video game equipment with him that he knew his little cousin Sam would want to play and he wasn't wrong. Sam and Iva were all over him from the minute we got down there to the minute we left. The kids had such a great time playing with him.
We made some funny discoveries on Wednesday night - I think this feast was a little challenging for my dear SIL. This was her first time hosting Thanksgiving in her beautiful new home and it was her show. At the same time, she does not feel the same way about cooking that I do - it's been a hobby of mine for such a long time and I really love it and pursue it, so it that way, we had decided together that it was also my show. In her house. It was a little trickier to navigate than I thought it would be. She was so great - she did as much shopping as she could before we came, but some of the ingredients weren't quite what I had expected. She's never cooked a turkey before! How would she know that she was accidentally buying smoked deli turkey breast and not a raw breast? It was kind of funny. Peter and I ended up at Smith's at 11:00pm on the night before Thanksgiving. And trust me, we were not the only people there. The place was kind of hopping. But we found what we needed.
Thursday was a really fun day. We took our time cooking in the morning, and the funnest was little Iva wanting to cook with me. We made a few things together and she was just darling. We were trying to keep the meal pretty simple but as usual I complicated things a little. In the end though it was really a fantastic feast. The turkey legs I roasted were awesome though the breast I pressure-cooked was not what I had hoped it would be. Sheri's potatoes and stuffing were fantastic and I tried a new roll recipe that was so good it was just wicked. I also tried this new pie recipe I mentioned - it had a creamy layer on the bottom covered in fresh raspberries and a glaze that was just so good. And Sheri made a to-die-for chocolate pie and pumpkin too. Well, I mean pumpkin "two" - she made an extra pumpkin pie which we happily devoured as an appetizer on Wednesday night.
What a fun day. We ended the evening by going to get our Christmas tree. Now that was a change from our tradition, wouldn't you say! Our tree-hunting friends weren't available for a cabin trip until mid-December, and that was just too long for us to wait. Peter and Sheri mentioned that there was a great little family down there who cut trees down at their ranch and sold them from a lot outside of town. We figured, hey, what the heck - and we went and got one. It was a great tree. Getting it home was a challenge, and I wondered if we would end up with a bare trunk by the time we arrived in SLC, but it survived the journey just fine, much to our shock. We were happy to support this family and get a great tree to boot. Once the tree was safely attached to the roof of the van and we were back at Peter and Sheri's house, we figured Christmas season was officially here. So we changed into our holiday jammies, snuggled up on the couch and watched our traditional first movie of the season, Christmas Vacation. Love it. (Okay, truth be told, we have been hankering for Christmas since early November and may have already snuck in some tunes and a viewing of Die Hard, another holiday fave.)
On Friday we were lucky enough to have Sheri take us to yet another location we've never been and go for a little hike. It is just amazing that trip after trip Sheri thinks of yet another new place to go. You'd think after all these years we would have seen all there is to see!
Pictures of the puppies while we played in the back yard:
Snuggling up while watching The Muppets Christmas Carol (which Sam and Iva didn't quite make it through):
Game night - the scary game of Betrayal at House on the Hill for the big people while I played heads up in the basement with Iva:
Peter, Romney and Siena had a little Christmas Music jam-session that was absolutely delightful:
So yes we had a great weekend - we loved being with family for the holiday and our state did not have a steep and massive spike in numbers after it was over. (The biggest was after Halloween I think.) We felt so happy to have gone on the trip and were ready to get serious about celebrating Christmas, plus we only had to pull over once on the way home when our tree spun around perpendicular to our car when we hit freeway speed. Like I said, it was a miracle that we made it home with any tree left at all. We decorated it that very night!
1 comment:
I think I remember that Christmas tree your dad made, do you have a picture of it?
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