We had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  It snowed just enough the night before to make it look festive, but not enough to make the roads difficult.  My parents gave us the best Thanksgiving gift ever again this year, bringing the kids to their house the night before, making the cooking and cleaning and setting up so much easier.  They returned on Thanksgiving day right around noon, bringing my Grandma Mitchell (aka Grandma Muder to my kids).  Here's Sophie, giving Grandma a paper turkey that she glued together earlier in the week.


Last year we had enough people for two tables and the kids spent the whole time running between the tables and crawling under the table and over our feet.  This year, with less guests, I decided to make the kids a table of their own, just to the side of the Big Table.  They loved it so much that they wanted to move it to the basement.  Before dinner.  Which of course started a battle and crying and even a little door slamming.  What's Thanksgiving without all of that? 

I think maybe Martin's been staying up late watching old reruns of David Letterman based on his choice of footwear. [Note: Does he still do that?  Letterman I mean?  Do I even have the right guy?]

My friends Molly and Linda sent us a fantastic turkey made out of sourdough bread by a bakery in San Francisco.  It was very festive and super tasty.


I made massive amounts of food.  Really, I don't know what I was thinking.  There were only ten of us, two of us being the kids who eat practically nothing on most days.  I made a 22-lb turkey, eight pounds of mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, Sourdough Stuffing with Pears and Sausage.  Marty's Aunt Mary brought her Grandma Loni's (I'm kind of embarrassed to say that I'm not sure how to properly spell Marty's Great-Grandma's name... but I can tell you that it rhymes with the end part of "macaroni") famous noodles.  Since we had all that food, I made everything on our tabletop small - tiny vases with a single flower, little candleholders with clear votives, and individual serving-sized gravy boats.  Except for at Marty's place, he got his very own full-sized gravy boat.  Because it's Thanksgiving, and I love him.


Also because I love Marty, I skip making any cranberry relishes and just slice up a can of jelled cranberry.  I don't even try to disguise it.  I just slide it on out of the can and place the sliced rings right on a tray.  Last year I used a pretty black tray that we'd received for our wedding and the rings made a permanent mark on the tray.  Since the tray is black it's not that big of a deal and I can still use it for other stuff, but from here on out, I'll always use it for the cranberry.  I was telling my mom this fascinating story at the dinner table and Martin was listening in on our conversation.  He asked to taste the Permanent Cranberry and loved it.  Tonight he asked me if I had any more Permanent Cranberry and I had no idea what he was talking about it.  It look me a few minutes, but when I finally figured it out, we had to add it to the grocery list because he said he could eat Permanent Cranberry every day.


For dessert we had Maker's Mark Pumpkin Pie that my mom made, chocolate cheesecake, and chocolate-covered pretzels for our non-dairy dessert.  Making the pretzels was super easy and made non-dairy by using a non-dairy chocolate.  As I suspected, Sophie skipped the pretzels, simply licking off the chocolate.


And we all took turns wearing our latest purchase, the new Thanksgiving essential, the Turkey Hat.


If you don't know when Thanksgiving is over, other than that desperate sort of feeling to put on some sweat pants, it's when Elvis can't leave the building because he can't find the door with a stuffed turkey on his head.