Thanksgiving menu:
Roast turkey
Mashed potatoes
Gravy
Baked sweet potatoes
Stuffing
Green (shelly) beans with bacon
Black olives
Cranberry sauce
Yeast rolls
Pumpkin pie
French Silk pie
We had a very traditional Thanksgiving dinner today. My father had eye surgery yesterday, so my parents very understandably didn't want everyone over today; I would have invited them to come to our house, but Daddy couldn't drive yet, of course, and they had planned to just have a very quiet dinner at home (they ended up having my sister and my niece over), so we had our own turkey dinner here.
I called my mom yesterday and got her recipe for stuffing; it turned out fine, but it wasn't as good as hers, of course. Bob cooked the turkey, which turned out beautifully; he mashed the potatoes, too, and made gravy. I cut up the onions and celery for the stuffing, and made vegetable soup while everything was cooking, and afterwards I washed dishes.
We used my Fiestaware dishes, and my grandmother's silver, and had the dozen red roses that Bob bought me for my birthday as the centerpiece.
It's really starting out to be a lovely birthday weekend. We got up fairly early and spent the morning cooking, then ate right at noon. I took a nap in the afternoon, and this evening I watched Wings of Desire, which I had never seen. I bought the DVD a few months ago, but just hadn't gotten around to watching it. I had been talking to David earlier today and he asked me what we were doing tonight; I told him nothing, probably--Bob was going to go to bed early so he could get up before dawn to go hunting tomorrow, so I might watch a DVD . . . I said I was thinking about watching Wings of Desire, and he said that he had it on DVD, too, and why didn't we watch it together?
So that's what we did, with me here, and him in England. We had an iChat window open, and it was very companionable. Bob and I had turkey sandwiches and pie at 7:00, then Bob went to bed.
He's sleeping now (his alarm is going to go off at 1:15!) and I've been trying to do a little picking up, although I'm trying to be very quiet so I don't wake him up. I made him turkey sandwiches to take tomorrow, and he has a cooler full of food for the weekend. He'll be gone until Sunday afternoon, and I don't have to work tomorrow, so I'm planning on having a quiet weekend--sleeping in, if I can, and doing a few fun things. I almost forgot that I'm getting my hair cut on Saturday. Thank goodness I looked at my calendar tonight. I thought I might see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire tomorrow night, if the theaters aren't too crowded. That would be a nice birthday weekend thing to do, I think. And of course I'll go out and do a little shopping. Not much, but the day after Thanksgiving is traditionally the first shopping day of the Christmas season.
I need to get Christmas music loaded on the iPod. Barb sent me Brian Wilson's What I Really Want for Christmas CD for my birthday, and Bob gave me an iTunes gift card, and Janel sent me the Love Actually soundtrack, so I have a bunch of wonderful new Christmas music. Oh, and I bought the Il Divo Christmas Collection with my last Amazon commission.
I was reading someone's blog the other day who mentioned that they don't play any Christmas music until Thanksgiving, and then after Thanksgiving that's all they play, starting with the drive home from wherever they spent Thanksgiving, and I thought that sounded like a pretty good tradition, which is why I'll probably spent some time tomorrow loading up the iPod with my thoroughly eclectic Christmas music collection. Jimmy Buffett and Crash Test Dummies and Leon Redbone and Beausolseil . . .
This is the "head" that my folks gave me for my birthday. I gave my mother one for her garden a few years ago, and she decided I needed one, too. I love his expression.
My mom called tonight, and my sisters, and my brother, and one of my nieces. My other niece sent me some Einstein Brothers gift certificates for my birthday, so I'll probably have lunch there tomorrow. Barb sent me some of my favorite Aveeno Stress Relief bath products, and the Brian Wilson CD, and a wonderful pine scented candle in a holder shaped like a Christmas ornament, and a new journal, and a little box that she made herself out of a greeting card.
David sent me The Tarot of the White Cats. (As I type this, I have a black cat lying on my lap with her chin resting on my left wrist; I'm lucky they let me type at all.) This deck is really sweet. The symbology is very close--in some cases identical--to that of the Rider-Waite decks, except with cats!
I was sad that my parents weren't going to have Thanksgiving dinner for everyone this year. It isn't the first time--my mother had surgery a few years ago and we skipped Thanksgiving. I was also feeling guilty that, since they weren't going to host a dinner, I didn't step up to the plate and host it myself. My rationalization is that our house is too small for the whole family, and it is, but that doesn't make me feel any less guilty. So I've been something of a ball of misery the last week or so, although I think I probably hide it well (except from Bob).
That's why we called my mom for her dressing recipe, and why we had the very traditional dinner--Bob wanted to recreate my mom's Thanksgiving dinner for me. I kept trying to tell him that food is really very unimportant, that I would truly have been just as happy with a turkey tv dinner, and he said he knew that, but he was going to make me a real Thanksgiving dinner anyway. I'm glad he didn't listen to me. It was really a terrific day.
I'm very blessed, and very thankful.
We had Thanksgiving dinner at Bob's parents' house last Sunday. I took a few pictures, but they weren't very good--the picture quality was good, but I seemed to catch everyone with their mouths open and their eyes closed. This was really the only good one--our niece Tabatha, who likes to have her picture taken, and who obviously is very photogenic:
