Three Days of Thanksgiving

I will wholeheartedly admit that Thanksgiving is one of my most favorite holidays.  How could I not love it?  Time off from school (if you live in the United States, as we do this year), time to spend with family and friends, and food, food, FOOD!  All this without the added stress of finding the right gifts for the right people by December 24th.  It was especially nice that my school district had an added day of Thanksgiving break.  

Last year we had two Thanksgiving dinners -- one with the Herth family the Saturday after the actual Turkey Day, and a second with the staff of the Waldorfschule just before the winter break started.  Having enjoyed cooking dinner last year, we thought we'd do it again this year for our friends (after watching ten seasons of the characters of Friends having Thanksgiving together, it's hard not to want to host one of our own).  It took a while to work out a date, having to schedule around both the Anderson family Thanksgiving and the Tam/Wong dinner, but eventually we worked it out so that we'd be in White Bear Lake on Thursday, Eden Prairie on Friday, and in Shorewood on Saturday. 

Thursday's Thanksgiving was lovely and quiet.  Bill and Amber drove up from Wisconsin to join us.  After an excellent spread of cheese, crackers, olives, and pickles and Thanksgiving dinner itself, we settled into playing Bananagrams and figuring out the rules of Settlers of Catan over some bubbly and wine.

Instead of doing the crazy Black Friday shopping thing the following day, Mike and I began preparing for our own Thanksgiving feast.  We had bought at 20 pound turkey in preparation for the event a week or so prior, but once it made it from the grocery store into our freezer, I forgot about it.  It didn't occur to me until the Monday before that I should start thinking about defrosting the bird.  Three and a half days of refrigerator defrosting was cutting it close, so I bought a giant pot just in case we needed to defrost it in water.

It was a good call.  

By noon the turkey was good to go.  I cleaned the bird and used the same recipe I used last year for the big school dinner.

Yes, those are chunks of butter beneath the skin of the turkey.

Soon we had all the mise en place for the side dishes ready... chopped up vegetables and day-old bread for the best stuffing in the world!

Mike, with his doctorate in potato and apple peeling, was awesome.  These apples ended up being put into an apple crisp we made for the Thanksgiving of the next night.

He also made amazing mashed potatoes using one of our favorite recipes from the Top Chef cookbook.

We also decided to bring a little off Germany into our Thanksgiving dinner, so we made the pumpkin soup we love so much. 

It was hard work at the stove, but I have to admit that I enjoyed it.

Meanwhile, Mike cleaned our entire living room and set up the tables to accommodate the food and people.  (Yes, the computers were necessary -- my recipes are on there!)

And, the turkey kept cooking...

...until it was perfect!

Everyone slowly tricked over to Eden Prairie.

There was tons of food.  

And, tons of fun!  We had a great night full of food, friends and family, and games -- all happy things.  There were also tons of leftovers, which was essential to the Thanksgiving experience.  All in all, success!

The final Thanksgiving was just a loud and crazy as the last with all of the cousins over at my uncle's home in Shorewood.  At dinner, my brother Calvin who is currently living in Virginia was put on video chat so he could eat with us for a while.  We ate, played games, and hung out until we were all exhausted.

It was a fabulous Thanksgiving weekend.  We can't wait for the Christmas version of it!