A Late Post About Thanksgiving

There's always so much to do at Thanksgiving time, so I was busy DOING STUFF and not taking the time to post about it.  So here's a look at our Thanksgiving preparations.  In an interesting turn of events, I don't actually have pictures of Thanksgiving Day.  Astrid took some photos that day, but I was so absorbed in the set-up and clean-up that I didn't pause for pictures.  Hopefully Astrid will post some of her pictures one of these times (hint!  hint!) and I can just put a link over to her site. 

Since we were hosting my parents, Mark, Astrid and their girlies, plus some of our local extended family for the big Thanksgiving meal, we needed seating for 20 people. So we opened up that vast Amish dining room table, and set up Mom and Dad's longest folding table in the empty half of our underfurnished living room. As you can see, I had a trusty assistant for chair set-up; Gregory was home sick from school that day.

Because it's just not a holiday if a couple things don't go haywire, we had a couple "issues" the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  For starters, Gregory was sick with an unidentified mish-mash of cold and stomach virus symptoms and stayed home from school on Tuesday.  Then late that evening when I was feverishly cleaning up the kitchen to get ready for the massive bake-a-thon I had planned for Wednesday, the DISHWASHER STARTED LEAKING ALL OVER THE FLOOR.  Imagine my panic.  20 people for Thanksgiving dinner, in approximately 36 hours.  Dishwasher not working.  NO CHANCE of getting a service technician out before the holiday.  Calgon, take me away!  However, both potential disasters (sick kid and sick dishwasher) worked out fine in the end.  Though Ray, Dad and Gregory gave the dishwasher repair a good effort, in the end it was Astrid who solved the problem.  She mentioned that there were certain dishes that she can't put in certain places in her dishwasher because they interfere with ... something ... inside the dishwasher and cause leaking.  It was my 1-gallon pitcher!!  Once the pitcher was moved, no more leaking.  And Gregory perked right up the next day, like nothing ever happened.

Next came the baking.  And baking.  And when that was done, there was more baking.  Lily made her famous pumpkin bread (a double batch) to share with our Thanksgiving guests.  Then I started in on pies and rolls.  We did all the baking on Wednesday, knowing that Thanksgiving Day would be much too late to be making such a gigantic mess. 

 See?  A big mountain of baked goods.  And for the record, that was not ALL of the baked yumminess we had on T-Day.  Mom brought two (amazing!) pecan pies and Shirley brought an apple and a blueberry pie.  We didn't run out of pie.

Am I bragging a little?  About that absolutely gorgeous, tall, fluffy lemon meringue pie?  Yeah.  I am.  Isn't it pretty?  It was ssssoooo tasty too.

Last, but not least, you need to see the ways in which Henry contributed to the Thanksgiving preparations.  He entertained himself for long periods of time at his train table (half naked and lying on top of it, of course) and then ... ya' know ... hung around nearby in a laundry basket.  Thanks for your help, little guy!