Thanksgiving Recap

Hello, friends! I’m sorry it’s been so long.

I mean, seriously, December 5 already! We are full bore into the holidays around here.

We decided to stay home for Thanksgiving and Christmas rather than travel this year. We needed and wanted to save our travel money for other financial goals. While we’re glad we made that decision, we really miss not being with family. It’s just not the same.

We put our best effort into Thanksgiving, though. We decorated the house, invited friends over, and poured over a pile of yummy recipes to create our own ultimate Thanksgiving.

We didn’t take extra time off work, so cooking commenced very early Thursday morning. I started the recipe for my mom’s dinner rolls only to realize I didn’t have enough yeast, so I headed to Kroger at 6:45 am in a chilly 17 degree temp. When I returned, Mackenzie was up and ready to help rock the dinner rolls.

Mom’s dinner rolls are a family secret and something we all look forward to every year. They are just ridiculously good. The first time I made them, I didn’t knead them enough or use enough butter, so this year, I really worked on that. Mackenzie had a LOT of fun with all the butter. 🙂

We made two dozen dinner rolls, and we seriously ate at least 8 of them before our guests even arrived at 2:00.

We also made pie crust from my mom’s recipe and used it to make a yummy blackberry pie. The pie crust was super easy and flaky and delicious. I’ll have to ask Mom if I can share the recipe with you guys.

After we got those two big items completed (Thanksgiving could seriously just be dinner rolls and pie, in my humble opinion), we worked on getting the living room ready. I sewed curtains for the kitchen and a matching table runner, and we moved the tables Chris built into the living room to transform it into a dining area.

Mackenzie was so excited to have friends over, and she had a lot of fun setting the kids’ table. She filled each plate with dinner rolls, candy corn, and pecans.

While we worked on that, Chris worked on the turkey. He had his heart set on frying a turkey, so we went all out. We bought the turkey from our CSA, and he used a Memphis Fried Turkey recipe that I’ll have to get him to share with us. It was an adventure, and we were nervous, but no one was injured, nothing burned down, and the turkey was delicious. Next time, we’ll use an injector to flavor the bird a little more, but it’s definitely a repeat for us.

Our guests were vegetarians, so we tried to make a lot of side dishes so that they would have plenty to eat. We made creamed peas and onions, kale salad with pomegranate seeds and pecans, stuffing, and brown sugar and pecan crusted sweet potatoes. Our friends brought peanut butter pie, gourmet mac and cheese, and wine.

The meal was amazing. We were all stuffed by the time we finished. The kids played and jumped around in Mackenzie’s room and generally had a ball. Mackenzie got to practice sharing (ahem). It was a really, really great day.

But man. I forgot how much effort goes into hosting Thanksgiving. By the end of the day, Chris and I were toast. Props to our mothers and all of the other amazing women who do this for us every single year. You rock.

Seriously. 😉

And that’s it for us. Our little Thanksgiving break was relaxed and fun and everything we hoped it would be, aside from being with family. Please tell me all about your Thanksgiving this year, or leave a link in the comments so I can catch up with you. 🙂