Thanksgiving In Our House

On Thursday, on Thanksgiving Day itself, we were busy. We had already planned to celebrate together with our friends the Purdy family, and they showed up around 9.30 am ready to get started with the cooking! I had decorated and set the table late after cleaning up the kitchen on the night before, as I like to take my time and make it as inviting as I can when there is an occasion.

9 people at the table, including a highchair not in the picture..

The names on the place cards were not written here yet on the maple leaves..

As I had taken all the space and set the table, the kids had to clear the coffee table in the living room to be able to sit and draw while they were waiting for their friends to show up while I got ready in the morning. Soon, they arrived and we got started with snacks, and the first thing to get ready and in the oven was ofcourse the turkey!

Prepping the bird..

Getting the pigs-in-a-blanket ready.

There is a lot of basting involved in cooking the turkey!

 

I'm always the one taking pictures and it may seem like I never cook anything as I'm always taking pictures of my husband and others cooking, but it's not like that. There is just not anyone taking any pictures of me when I'm in the kitchen as I'm the only one thinking about taking pictures. Here we got a few with me and Chris and also with Cassie that came out a bit later after getting ready.

So after a lot of cooking, and some napping of the younger guests, we were finally ready to get seated and eat and enjoy the meal. 

After dinner, Chris had to excuse himself so he could show up and deliver the pies that were from us to work and make sure that his Marines were taken care of. We had a little scare where we thought that there wouldn't be a turkey for the troops as he who was making it wasn't there, but luckily he was just running late..

At home, the kids were reading, playing and drawing while waiting for Chris to get back home and to have dessert!

Apple pie and pumpkin pie with vanilla ice cream

After a long day, our guests left around 6pm and it was time for our little ones to get ready for bed too. We had saved the wishing bone for them to pull. The twins pulled and wished for something, and when the bone was broken, they ran to their beds to see if the wishing fairy had put something under their pillow. Which she had. Little toys were waiting and there was still time for some playing before bedtime!

After a long day, it was nice to curl up on the sofa and just relax after I had gotten the twins in bed. Cassie was watching something in her room and we tried to catch some of Macy's Parade late at night, as it was early morning in New York City, when we were about to go to bed. A bit funny, as this is something that we used to watch in bed just waking up in Arizona!

Tired - late at night on the sofa watching the parade!

Early Thanksgiving Dinner For Work

It has been a busy week here with a lot of shopping and cooking! We normally always cook a Thanksgiving meal for my husband's work colleagues, or mainly for the single Marines and the ones on duty. Some years, we have always invited some single Marines to our home, to share our meal and to take care of these younger ones over the holidays. The same over Christmas. If possible, we have always made sure that the MP's on duty were able to swing by the house and get a good meal to go. This year, another person at my husband's work wanted to make the turkey for the troops, so when everyone pitched in with something, we only needed to provide the pies.

Due to that, we wanted to do something for the Japanese Security Guards that my husband work very close with, and as he is in charge of a bigger office here with about 20 JSGs and a few office staff that are Japanese, including his interpreter, he decided to cook them a traditional Thanksgiving dinner as appreciation to their work and say Thank You! As it's an American Holiday, the Japanese don't observe it, and they were very excited to hear that we were cooking for them! Normally, nobody would think of them, or to share a meal with them like this, but we thought it was very much appropriate to do this for them.

Cooking such a big meal with the one oven occupied over so many hours, takes some planning on how and when to cook what. I started off on Tuesday evening to make the cornbread. To make it easier for the buffet style, I made cupcakes instead of in a tray to cut. They would also be easy to warm up last minute when the turkey would already be out of the oven.

Early Wednesday morning before leaving for work at 6am, Chris cleaned and prepped the turkey and put it in the oven on low heat, that I later monitored and turned up when I got the kids up and ready for school.

 Early morning prep, this 22 pound ( about 10 kg) turkey is ready to get into the oven!

 A couple of hours later, when Chris came back, it started to look pretty good and it smelled fantastic in the house!

Ready to go! 

The end of the cooking got very hectic, as I had to pick up the kids earlier as they only had half a day in school. All food needed to be ready and delivered at work before 2pm, as we wanted to get both the oncoming shift as well as the shift that finished for the day. I had to stay behind with the kids after loading up all the food in the car. There was besides the turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, beans, corn, cornbread muffin, stuffing, cranberry jam, bread, apple pie and pumpkin pie to feed about 20 people. 

This was the first people coming to eat that my husband got a picture of for me. 

It was a huge success and everyone was happy! While Chris continued working and staying late as he missed a few hours during cooking, I was left with the clean up and starting to prepare for the next day's cooking, our very own Thanksgiving dinner!