Thanksgiving Highlights

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. It ties with the Fourth of July. WHY these are my favorite holidays is still somewhat unclear in the recesses of my mind--maybe because there is no pressure involved--as long as you have a little food, everyone's happy. Maybe because the Fourth was the precursor to my birthday. . . who knows. We had a fun day yesterday. Our highlights:

** Food, glorious food! It is SO nice not to have to put together an entire Thanksgiving dinner by yourself. So here's a little hint--the more people you invite, the less food you have to make. Of course, then half the food ends up in the trash because the kids won't eat it, but whatever.

**Homemade butter. Turns out Lucy learned how to make homemade butter in class this week. We put her knowledge to work and made our own butter for Thanksgiving dinner. Guess what? Delish. If you are really nice to me, I'll share our super-secret recipe.

**Friends and family. The Powells, David, Seth, friend Yanny, friends Finlaysons, friends Julie and kids=lots of fun. Later, more friends joined us for games. These neighbors live 2 houses down, we all love games, but we only seem to do it on Thanksgiving Day. Maybe we'll go for a few more game nights this next year.

**Games. We loooooooooooooooooooove games here at the homestead. We played spoons (woohoo . . . Zach didn't pull anyone across the table this year), Pit, Apples to Apples, Greed, and Catch Phrase.

**Humor. (1)Our friend L. leaned over to her son during spoons and said, "Hey! Don't use the word cra*. It's not nice." (Names abbreviated to protect the innocent.) Two seconds later, L. yelled, "CRA*!! I needed that card." Gave me a good laugh. (2) While playing Catch Phrase, friend L.'s word was cra*. (I know . . . what are the odds?) Her clue? "This isn't a nice word." My sister C. spouted off a list of not nice words so fast it made my head spin. Luckily it was one of the first four words she said or I might have had to print this one in asterisks. (3) David and Seth--together in the same room--for several hours. Need I say more?

**Gratitude. There's something inherently right about a day set aside just to say thank you. Could we do this 4 times a year? I'm only making the turkey once, though, so we'd better come up with some different feast foods.

Happy late Thanksgiving to all.