A change in the wind

The temperatures are quickly dropping; the winds are picking up. Our brief warm spell is broken. I got out and ran this morning before the conditions became too challenging.

Thanksgiving was its usual hectic self. The menu over the years has not changed much as the kids look forward to certain dishes. When the kids were little, I would serve this concoction, ambrosia, a mix of coconut, mandarin oranges, marshmallows and sour cream. I replaced this with a pear, cranberry chevre salad with a pear champagne vinaigrette. This was not well received though Josh's friend seemed to like it.
Josh made candied sweet potatoes; Shanna made pecan pie and mashed potatoes. The friend supplied some of the wine. Naomi did general kitchen chores such as peeling potatoes and ripping up bread for the stuffing. Maya tore up some bread too.

The rest of the menu:
Turkey and gravy with bread stuffing. The stuffing is a simple mix of celery, onions, butter, bread and spices. Addition of cornbread, nuts, dried cherries, dried cranberries, all tried in the past, meet with displeasure.

Cauliflower au gratin. This didn't make it to the table. It was placed in the oven to keep warm then forgotten about until today along with a second dish of yams.

Sparkling cranberry and cherry juice. No one eats cranberry sauce here and not everyone is a drinker.

Crescent rolls from a can: This task I set Naomi to do as she somehow polished off 5 cans of these during our trip. But she said it was impossible as there were no perforations for her to use. Steve had bought the kind that is used for not separating. The end result was none of the rolls were the same size or shape. The little kids didn't care. Danny refers to these as 'special bread'.

Green bean casserole:  Who doesn't have this? I had numerous reminders..make sure that you...To class it up a bit, I used portabella mushroom soup. Sadly I cooked the top onions too long. Too many dishes for me to keep track of.

Ginger pear crisp from fresh, tasty pears. I thought this turned out especially well but maybe two desserts were too much. No pumpkin pie, a disappointment to some of the crowd. Steve and I don't eat it and we have to deal with the left overs. All those candied yams should be similar enough.

Missing giblets: What happened to them? I performed a disgusting body cavity search for them. As I have no more animals to feed them to, I would have thrown them away anyway.

So lots of leftovers. Lots of running around on my part. I tried to squeeze a bike ride in before I had to do my slicing and dicing chores to get that turkey in such that it would be done by 3. Our dining room is too small for all the adults that now make up our family and we were down one. Tessa and Maya sat on laps. The boys had one of their three Thanksgiving meals already and were happy to be some place else. Next year, Shanna will have a house and have dinner.

But I think we all enjoyed being together, which is a blessing. I do love it that all my kids live so close and I can watch the babies grow up. Tessa especially is changing at least in the tricks she can do. She happily was passed from lap to lap yesterday during dinner.