Thaw the Turkey!

My dad always said his favorite holiday was Thanksgiving.  As a kid, that always sounded like crazy talk to me.  I did not love turkey or any kind of pie for many years.  Stuffing was weird, cranberries too tart, perfectly good marshmallows ruined on top of sweet potatoes.  Thanksgiving was good for sticking olives on all your fingers and eating your weight in mashed potatoes.  Where was the excitement of Halloween or Christmas?

Now, of course, I see my dad's wisdom in this being a top-ranked holiday.  This week everyone has been so excited that Seth only had two days of school and Jon would get W,TH, and F off as well.  Five days in a row to spend together as a family?  Halloween looks like a chump in comparison.

This morning the boys ran in and asked if it was morning yet (short daylight hours is always confusing for the non-clock readers), and as it was 7:12, I said "yep" and thus the day started.  Jon was telling me about some fun wintery activities in our upcoming schedule (a winter lights parade!) and I grabbed the computer to look up some more turkey day recipes, feeling thankful that after a week or two our internet was finally fixed yesterday.  Although in the fixing of our internet, they did turn off our magic cable.  In the spirit of thanksgiving, I'm trying to feel thankful that we had magic cable for a time and trying not to focus on the whole turning off part. 

We will have our second annual gluten free thanksgiving with Uncle Josh, and let me tell you, I am a person who down right gets excited about thanksgiving cooking these days.  Don't have anything to do this year? Come to our house!  We will have food to feed a small army!  Can't come this year? Make plans to come next year!  Thanksgiving very much seems like a more the merrier type holiday.

I've just decided to add a pumpkin cake roll to the menu, I only hope I bought enough GF flour.  I think it will go nicely with our pumpkin pie and pecan pie.  Our pumpkins used to have spiderman stickers all over them, and they have been removed and cooked down into mush.  Our pecans came straight from our backyard.  Is it weird that knowing the background on the ingredients makes me love the items more?  (I can't say for certain, but I very much doubt I would feel this way about our turkey.)

If you are considering buying a new house, I would highly recommend having a pecan tree in your backyard.  You may even consider the lack of one as a deal breaker.  It's definitely one of my favorite things about our new house.  Every day we spend time outside gathering pecans, delighted in our growing pile.  So far we have taken 26 pounds to a local farm for shelling, and I'm guessing we will end up with another 26 pounds or more to take later in the year.  Last night our family worked together to shell just enough pecans for our thanksgiving pies and in the end it looked like someone dumped mulch all over the living room carpet.  Small sacrifice when everybody got to pitch in and the first pie turned out so great. 

Okay, I better be off, there's cooking to start after all.     

Thankful, I am:
for a wise dad
for a mom that always had the most aromatic house on the block on thanksgiving morning
for time to spend at home with my husband and boys
for boys who ask if it's morning yet after the merciful 7 o'clock hour
for the ability to relax and lay in bed with a laptop and working internet
for a husband who plans fun family activities
that we get to spend time with Josh
for being excited to cook for my family, happy to provide for their bellies and holiday traditions for their memories
for desserts
for enjoying God's creation outside, picking pecans
that I don't have to butcher my own turkey
for kids who enjoy helping, who think nothing is better than helping mom and being like dad