Thanksgiving Memories

Howdy, everyone!
Happy Thanksgiving!

I sure do miss my mom more than ever today.  She just ADORED Thanksgiving and was always so proud on how she would get up early, watch the "Macy's Thanksgiving Parade" on TV and then start in on the turkey.  When she would be done with it, it looked too good to eat.  Of course, I've never been a turkey fan, but if you cover it with gravy then it's not tooooo bad.  This coming from years of experience!!  Or, you can cover it with a dollop of potatoes AND the gravy on top of the turkey and it is so good.  My mom could never understand why I didn't like turkey too much.  "It's an American tradition!" she would always exclaim.  Yeah, well, some people aren't too much into THAT tradition!!

I remember one Thanksgiving in Michigan where we spent it with a few friends of ours, Roger and Marie.  He was responsible for cooking the turkey.  Mom made the side dishes and I think Marie brought over the pie.  Anyway, Roger lived in the same complex that we did, so we went down at almost the time the bird was ready to come from the oven.  We knocked on the door and Roger opened it up and he was dressed (if you could call it that!)  in a quilt.  He had a horrible toothache, he said, but he did get the turkey into the oven on time.  We went into the apartment and he went to change in his bedroom. You couldn't smell the aroma of cooking turkey, which we thought was strange.

Roger came out of the bedroom and we followed him in to the kitchen.  We peered into the oven and what we saw was frozen turkey from a malfunctioning oven!  Of all the days for the oven to poop out, it had to be now!!!  Roger had the brilliant idea to microwave what we would eat of it.  It would turn out almost the same way.  So that was the Thanksgiving that we ate turkey by microwave.  At least the sides were good, as was Marie's pie.  Roger still was having a time with his tooth, but he is like me and actually has to be FORCED into the dentist.  He did go some time last week, the tooth was abscessed so they gave him antibiotics to take and when he started feeling better, he saw no need to return.  That decision burned him in the butt....or shall I say mouth?

Anyway, what I learned that Thanksgiving is even if things to turn out differently than you planned, you can still laugh and have fun anyway.  And we did our plenty of share of that!!

I also remember my first Thanksgiving with my in-laws.  It was in 2002.  Here are some photos I took:

Ummm.....our Thanksgiving spread!!  Almost done, just waiting on the turkey.  I love Thanksgiving with all the treats and spending time with family.  I just wished my folks could have made it, too.

The chefs, hard at work.  I loved watching my in-laws in the kitchen. They always fought over something....the oven, how something was prepared, too much salt...you name it, chances are they fought over it!!!

The turkey coming out of the oven.  My husband standing around and watching his dad pull the bird out of the oven.

Ahhhhh....time to eat!  And eat we did, until our sides were stuffed.  We had a great Thanksgiving with my new in-laws that year.

This year we are doing a ham and Frankie's brother-in-law and sister will be over to join in the festivities.  We always have such a hoot of a time with them.  They are so fun to be with and we all love hearing their stories of their work and play time!

We are saving the the turkey for Christmas when Jay and Barbara (brother-in-law and Frankie's sister) and my grandma are here.  That will be an even LARGER fare...but one we are all looking forward to.

The weather here has been totally radical.  I wish I felt better.  I'm so exhausted all the time and my leg is just absolutely killing me with either sharp, aching pains or that burning electrical type of pain.  I can't do much to help because I can't stand for more than a minute now (I kid you NOT!) so I feel so bad that my mother-in-law is working her butt off and she hurts like hell, too.  The only difference between her and me is I've got all this weight on my bones and she doesn't.  So she can move a lot better then me at this point.  I just hope and pray that NEXT YEAR will be a different story.  I'll be post surgery and on my way to weight loss bliss!!  AND, I can help out where needed again.  I can't wait!!

I hope you all have a happy and safe Thanksgiving.  Make lots of memories with your family and friends....you never know how long you will have to do that.  I learned that valuable lesson from my mom and her untimely death.

Blessings to you and your family!!!
Until next time,