Gathered Together After a Turkey Trot

 

Wow.  It feels like forever since my last post.  I hope every one of you American readers had a marvelous Thanksgiving.  Ours was filled with family time, drizzly weather, and good food and wine.

 

Our cool, rainy Thursday morning began with six members of our family headed off to an annual turkey trot.  Two of our sons ran this 5K, two people volunteered as course marshals, and two were bystanders who cheered the runners on.  This was the first race ever for our ten year old who has boundless energy and can literally run circles around me any day.  Our older son hung near him through the race, and both crossed the finish line within seconds of each other with quite a bit of energy left.  They finished in the top half of the 234 runners, which wasn't bad for two amateurs who really don't train for these things, and the entry fees went to non-profit organizations.

 

When they all returned, cold and damp from the November rain, I had the turkey roasting in the oven and appetizers/light lunch on the table.

 

I cheated this year and picked up most of the appetizers from the deli and bakery sections of the supermarket.  The cherry cordial Hershey's Kisses were the favorite new item of the morning.

 

Our traditional Thanksgiving dinner was scheduled to be held at 3 PM, but as usual, we didn't sit down to eat until a bit later.

 

That was because we were waiting on these two casseroles to finish baking.  I always need to double the recipes, and the vegetable dishes always seem to need more time to set up than I predict.  The sweet potato casserole on the right is the one I make every year, along with millions of other Americans, I'm sure.  This year I made a corn casserole instead of green bean casserole, which pleased my children tremendously.  There were a lot of these recipes on Pinterest, but the one I used can be found here at www.stuckonsweet.com. The only change I made was doubling the recipe, and I had to nearly double the bake time.

 

My little ones were standing close by, salivating and very eager for the dinner bell to ring.

 

Hubby did the traditional turkey carving, with the assistance of his dad, while I performed all those last minute tasks with the help of my mother-in-law and teenage daughter.  

 

But in the end, it all came together seamlessly, and we gave thanks and began eating around 3:30.  It looked like we had enough food to feed us all for a week, but as it turned out, everything was gone within two days.

 

After dinner and kitchen cleanup, there were Christmas movies, games of Phase 10, pumpkin pie and dessert wine, and just more family time in general.

 

My day was complete after getting to hold this sweet baby boy in my arms while he slept peacefully amidst all the ruckus around him.

And for all these things, I am thankful.