Thanksgiving 2009, I have a lot to be thankful for!

2009 has had its share of adversity for me, I lost my Mom on March 17th and my Dad on October 24th and on a different scale we lost our 9 year old cat, Sybok, on November 14th. When I turned 18, I left and have not lived with or near my parents since. I finally settled in Florida with Bride starting in 1990 and have lived about 1000 miles from my parents since that time. I guess what I am saying is that I did not have a close relationship with them. That does not mean that I did not love them with every fiber of my being, what it does mean is we did not live close to each other and therefore did not see each other very often. No matter what, it is very hard to maintain a close relationship when there is large geographical distance between folks. As I look back over the last year I find that even with all of that, my heart is light and I am happy, there is a lot to be thankful for. My Bride and I are still in love and after 20 years more importantly we are still best friends. We are ambulatory and have a good modicum of health. We have family on both sides that we love and that love us. We are able to pay our bills and they have not kicked us out of our house. My Niece is living with us now, she started her new life in Florida in July, and she has brought a lot of joy to our lives. She has wanted to move to Florida since she was 12 but at 22 finally found a way, to just do it. She is in school to become a surgical technician and working full time, she is quite an ambitious young woman and we are thankful she is in our lives. We have so much to be thankful for that I am embarrassed. Do we wish we had more, sure but do we NEED more – not so much.

I am not sure how it started but at some point we reached a tipping point that had 14 people coming to our Thanksgiving day feast. At first I was thinking no big deal, we can do this. The closer we got to the date, probably 3 weeks out I started really wondering, what does it actually take to feed 14 people. Our record for a dinner at our house was 7 and that seemed easy by comparison. I started thinking about things like, how am I going to sit 14 people, how much food will it take to feed 14 people and what kind of tables will I use to seat those 14 people. Bride and I are not big party throwers, we do not entertain large numbers of people so we had no point of reference for it. While we do cook great meals at Thanksgiving we just have not done so for so many people. Well about a week and half out my anxiety was kicking into high gear. We started calling my sister in an attempt to ask questions, how much turkey, what about gravy and how many pounds of potatoes. She was more than mildly amused, she did however give us good advice and was EXTREMELY helpful in the weeks leading up the big day. I was looking around on the internet as well, Butterball.com is a pretty helpful sight. Once we had finally finalized the menu we thought we were ready and all the items were purchased.

The closer we got I started to calm down, we knew we would have help, my sister the gourmet and others who know more about cooking than Bride and I. We would be having Fried turkey, two 12 pounders along with an 8 pound ham. Ten pounds of red potatoes would be whipped into two batches of mashed, one with skins on, one with skins off. Stuffing, Gravy, yams, broccoli and green bean casseroles and brown and serve rolls would round out the menu for the big day. We would also be having pies that were ordered from the Village Inn. Have I mentioned that Bride and I are not big on the cooking front, I really prefer Stove Top and brown and serve rolls to fancy smancy homemade stuffing and I will not take all the time it takes to make my own bread. Sorry but that is the kinda man I am, I believe that is one of the things about me Bride liked – a simple palette. Bride was pretty sure she would be able to handle the kitchen duties and I would be performing the manly duty of frying the two 12 pound turkeys. We made the casseroles the evening before as well as my world famous homemade cornbread, it is true that I do make a few items from scratch.

So at T-1 day we were feeling pretty confident, tables and chairs were acquired and standing by in the garage. Food was all purchased and as many items that could be made in advance were already prepared. That afternoon I had picked up the first of our visitors at the airport, my Nephew and his Girlfriend who had flown in from Toledo Ohio. We spent the evening relaxing and enjoying the company. T Day, how about that, the T could mean Turkey instead of Time so maybe I was sub subconsciously counting down to Thanksgiving day, who knew. My Uncle and Aunt showed up at about a quarter to 11 and my Sister and her Husband showed up a few minutes later. An hour or so later my other Nephew and his wife and two kids showed up and another friend showed up about the same time. There were several rounds of poker played and much story telling of past times, it was a very enjoyable time. All hands present and accounted for, it was time to leap into action on the meal. There were several items that would take in the neighborhood of one hour in the oven. The potatoes were simmering, chicken necks for the gravy were boiling and that is when everything kicked into high gear.

There were a few speed bumps in that last hour but nothing that could not be overcome. I had inadvertently givien my Sister a container of Bisquick instead of regular flour and that was not reacting in the gravy in a way that she was anticipating. We had a boil over of the potatoes onto the stove. The two birds took about an hour to bring them to fried turkey perfection, and in taste and color they were perfect. My Nephews had moved the furniture out of the living room and set up two 8 foot long tables with table clothes with doilies and silverware. Bride had a lot of welcome help in that last hour in the kitchen and everything came together. My Brother in law and I went to whacking away on the birds and we were dangerously close to sitting down for dinner – I was very excited. We were setting all the food up in the eat in kitchen and on the kitchen counters and everyone would make a trip through with their plates. Before we started I want to say a grace, I had been thinking about it for a few days, for some reason I wanted it to be perfect. I was reviewing it over and over in the days leading up to today. I knew I wanted to thank those farmers that grew and raised the vegetables and animals. I also wanted to thank everyone for making it and I was thankful that everyone could make it. I wanted to thank the men and women in the military and their families for suffering through the holidays without their loved ones. I also wanted to thank the manufactures of the boxes, bags and cans that all this food come in. That was kind of a joke for my Sister, she makes pancakes from scratch and would never consider using Stove top stuffing from a box.

Anyway after the blessing we all got our plates and Bride suggested we go around the table and each tell what we were thankful for. I was unprepared for this and she asked me to go first. I talked about the adversity we had suffered through this year with the loss of both our parents. I also was thankful that we were able to get together and laugh and enjoy ourselves and a few other comments followed. For some stupid reason I did not say I was thankful for my Beautiful Bride. To me that was a “goes without saying” but as I listened to all the other husbands describe how thankful they were for their wives I started feeling bad about that. I love my wife more than ANYTHING and felt bad for slighting her, she did not mind either but I felt bad.

Dinner was fabulous and everyone ate well, there was plenty of leftovers and I was happy about that as well. It ended up being a GREAT time and a good time was had by all. All of my initial anxiety was not founded and I hope we will be able to host a dinner like that again.