Thanksgiving: A Retrospective

Squee! A flash drive of my very own! Christmas came early!

So, let's get caught up, shall we?


Of course, now, a day after the fact, all that's left of Thanksgiving is half-eaten pies, burned down candles and a fridge full of leftovers. But what a party! We only had nine people but we had five pies. That's little more than half a pie per person! We're kind of pie-crazy in my family. Thanksgiving just isn't Thanksgiving without a preponderance of pies. And it has to be the same kind every year: two pumpkin, one pecan, one chocolate pudding, one vanilla pudding. Sometimes, if there's going to be an actual preponderance of people, we'll throw an apple, maybe a blueberry into the mix.


Speaking of pies (we are, still, aren't we?), I did get around to making my own pie crusts and they were WONDERFUL! Easy, light, flaky, buttery! All thanks to Julia Child and my Cuisinart! I really needed someone around who could appreciate the beauty of it all; I made my poor Viking come over and gaze at the flecks of butter evenly distributed through the dough after I'd rolled it out. He thinks I'm barking mad.


I was so on the ball this year it was really, really weird. Everything was ready on time, everything was delicious, I was not the stressed-out, frantic madwoman I tend to be on Thanksgiving (and Christmas), and we even had time for the four of us to spend an hour at Starbucks in the middle of the afternoon! It was truly bizarre. And just so you know, we don't usually go to Starbucks. The Viking makes a mean cup of joe and I usually prefer tea anyway and Starbucks is just too expensive for us. But we needed to get out, take a break and spend some time together and Starbucks was the only place open.


The only dish I got any photos of was this year's cranberry sauce. It just looked so pretty I had to shoot it. Mom got me this little dish at a yard sale some years back. I've always had it on display in my kitchen and the first year I made the sauce, it seemed the perfect piece to serve it in and that's just about all I use it for now.


I halved the recipe this year because every other year I've had a jar of the stuff go bad in the back of the fridge and it pains me to dump it in the disposal. But halving it wasn't the solution either. It was gone by the end of the feast last night; no leftovers for tonight!


So, check out that cute, little place card! The photo does not do it justice--even EGOD had only complimentary things to say about them. You can also catch a glimpse of the Holiday dishes and my cute, little gravy boat in the back there--another yard sale find from Mom. It goes so well with my dishes and is just the right size for gravy!

After dinner, we sat around for a bit feeling bloated and overindulgent and then we got over it and had pie. Then the sticks-in-the-mud went home and we delved into the game stash. First it was Casual Outburst: no one keeps score and there are no teams. One person reads the categories and everyone else just shouts things at them until all items in the category are named. Great for loud families like mine. That one always sends The Viking right up to bed. Last night Casual Outburst almost became Casualty Outburst when Daria and I began kicking and shoving each other. As always, she started it. But that seemed to sound the death knell for that game so we started another.

I don't know why we thought it would be a good idea after the fisticuffs that had erupted during Outburst, but we decided to break into the hard stuff next: Dutch Blitz. No other game makes my family foam at the mouth more than this one does. We play it fast and loose and if you're new, well, just look out!

As you can imagine, this game deteriorated after a while as well. I kept starting a few lines of songs that I know Daria hates because I knew they would get into Mom's head and she wouldn't be able to stop singing them. All I had to do was go, "...lucky I'm in looooove with my best friend..." and Mom would take over and do the rest while Daria glared at me. It's a great way to really irritate someone if you have just the right set-up for it. Sadly, shoving was to blame for the end of this game, too, when Daria and I shoved each other's cards off the table. I guess she was still a little miffed about being shoved unceremoniously into the recliner during Outburst. Good times, good, good times.