Thanksgiving denoument

Thanksgiving was AWESOME - my family and friends rock, so have sympathy on those who had less fortunate thanksgivings.

My mom offered to start the green bean casserole since she gets up earlier than everyone and so I wasn't rushed to get up at 7 am. I got up leisurely at 7:15, tossed my rat's nest of sleeping-on-the-inflatable-bed-hair and went downstairs and the casserole was almost ready to go in the oven. Mom then started on the devils eggs while I dumped the scalloped taters out of the box, as Claire and Paul made their way downstairs.

They both don't like sitting around doing nothing while other people are working, so they put the couchbed away, and then started finding all the pictures I purposefully didn't hang since I knew Claire's a) better at that than I am and b) actually likes doing it while I find it to be a dreary chore. Win win situation, I say.

So, as I'm putting food together in my pajamas(how awesome that you can cook things ahead of the turkey and then put them in the fridge??), my house is getting redecorated and pictures are being hung. Yay. Then the turkey goes in the oven, and according to my timetable, it's time to take a shower!

... and I realize in the shower that I forgot to put SUGAR in the fake-sweet-potato-pie recipe. Oops. Well, if that's the only thanksgiving disaster, hey, I'll take it.

I come down and my house looks FANTASTIC. C&P have vacuumed and swept and hung EVERYTHING I didn't feel like hanging, and then proceed to tell me that they want to move some furniture for me because my beautiful antique armoire is not being shown off enough.

About this time I finally get in touch with Gus and Kat, and find out they're going to be in on the 11:40 train, which means I have to leave about 5 min from now to go get them. C&P leave about then to pick up some wine and firewood.

Despite the fact the train was late, we beat Claire and Paul back, and can't find my mother, who's disappeared somewhere upstairs. Claire and Paul come back with a mega-jug of wine that matches the size of the double sized white wine I'd bought for the gravy earlier. This turns out to be a good (or bad, depending on your view of hangovers) thing.

And hey, since it's now after noon by three minutes, it's time to start drinking!

There was only one minor snafu. The turkey was not browning. We were sure the meat was done but it "needs to look pretty" said my sister. We solved this buttering the turkey to kingdom come and turning the broiler on, and leaving it in for 5 minutes.

PERRRFECT! Claire offers to make the gravy and I'm all "go for it!" and go and drink some "Fire Engine Red" wine with my guests (which was the only normal sized bottle of wine we had).

Dinner totally rocked. Everything, even the butternut-squash-casserole turned out ok (throwing extra marshmallows on things solves most problems), and we were quite happy.


... and then we broke out Apples to Apples, attempted to teach my mom how to play poker and my sister (who understands poker rankings) the concept of "pot odds", and killed about 5 L of wine, 1.5 bottles of Jack Daniels and a bottle of vanilla rum, and realized you cannot teach euchre to drunk people. I totally wish I had a tape recorder for the poker portion, however. Priceless.

You're all invited next year.