A Very Turducken Thanksgiving

The small humans and I enjoyed a very quite, uneventful, travel-less Thanksgiving Day. Uriah was out the door long before Abby made a morning appearance, but Finn and I were awake shortly after he left (such is the case when you have a creaky old house.).  We had breakfast and plotted and planned our day.  The sun peeked out early and the weather was somewhat warm, so after watching a bit of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on tv, Finn headed outside to play.  What I love most about this house is that he can play in the back yard and I can be in the kitchen and because of all of the windows, I can track his moves.  I also had the door open for awhile to let some of the fresh fall air in.

I had already spent most of the week preparing for Friday's festivities, and since I plan everything with lists and time tables, I was pretty well prepared on Thursday for what was to come on Friday. Uriah had de-boned the birds Wednesday night, I had casseroles prepared, bread dough proofing for dinner rolls, sweet potato sticky buns ready to go in the oven Friday morning so really, the only thing I had left to do Thursday was to make a pumpkin pie - I chose to veer away from the norm and made an Amaretto Pumpkin Pie with Almond Praline. I'm somewhat of a pie crust failure, although I've studied diligently at the knee of my mother; she is the queen of a light, flaky crust. Mine tend to be over-rolled and a bit gummy, so I took my time with it. I walked away a few times to play outside with Finn and it took me most of the morning to finish it off and bake it.

I surprised the small humans with build your own pizzas and the movie Brave Thursday night. And as we settled in to enjoy our dinner picnic-style in the living room with our movie, the first flakes began to fall.  It didn't take long for the back yard to be covered and the words to Winter Wonderland began to filter through my head. Unfortunately, my parents drive took them about an hour extra due to the crap roads, but they made it. Finn and I had just gone outside on a snowy adventure when they pulled into the driveway (read: Finn was dying to go outside into the snow and I could see that the sidewalk needed some serious shoveling done, hence the "adventure.").

Our family and friends arrived on Friday afternoon for the feast.  There was lots of snacking, lots of puppy dog kisses, a few baby melt-downs, and some family pictures taken in the snow.  There was a long drawn-out game of Monopoly between the tween crowd, Abby fell down the stairs - and remained unharmed, and Ginny the dog tried her hardest to make friends with Finn (he was having none of her adorableness and chose instead to be held.  By me.  A lot.).  Two 6-foot long tables surrounded by 14 chairs held the masses of food and people for dinner.  We all said what we were thankful for, which takes a minute when you have 9 adults, 3 tweens, and 2 toddlers.  I was - and still am - thankful for every person who happens to find themselves around my table at any time of the year, for plenty of food to eat, and for safe travels.

We pretty much ate everything; there was not much for leftovers, which is a good thing for my refrigerator (and my waist), but not so much when I really wanted a snack of mashed potatoes and gravy on Friday night (there were no potatoes leftover to snack on.  Or gravy.  I probably would have eaten the gravy with a spoon and no potatoes.).  For as much work as I though the turducken would be, it seemed to be no more time-consuming than doing a traditional turkey (which we've done in a brine before, and also takes preparing a few days in advance.).  I wanted to take more pictures but I don't even know what I was doing  - setting the table, probably, or holding Finn - and I turned around and it was in the oven, roasted and done.  It was pretty tasty and I would not be opposed to doing it again.

We did have leftovers of the turducken beast and let me assure you, it does make some mighty tasty turkey/duck/chicken/stuffing turnovers a few days later.  And my pastry crust was flaky.  And Uriah even made gravy for them.  I might still be dreaming of Turducken Turnovers.

I think I want to have Thanksgiving at my house every year for the next forever.  Whether our families will oblige remains to be seen.  But I love Thanksgiving and so I will cook for whomever wants to come to my house and eat at my table.

And also, I really (selfishly) loved not having to travel, because this is what a few hours difference will make:

Thursday at 11:49 am (L) | Thursday at 8:40 pm (R)