Our Thanksgiving

I forgot to trot out the camera for the Thanksgiving meal, but here's a little Turkey Day video taken later in the afternoon when the children were out playing and Michael was putting up some outdoor Christmas lights.


It was a nice day. The children sat and watched the full three-hour Macy's parade in the morning with Michael while I made the meal.

I had a good idea this year, one which I'm sure that anybody else experienced in preparing a big meal is a pro at: I did a lot of pre-cooking the day before! It worked out so great. I was so less frazzled. And, perhaps most importantly, the kitchen was not such a big mess! I was prepared and, as a result, relaxed. Heck, I even made my own pie crust (Yum and pretty easy Martha Stewart recipe) and homemade cranberry sauce. Every year I always intend to make homemade cranberry sauce but never get around to it. It could not be easier. I will never eat cranberry sauce out of a jar again. Well, I will make that a goal, anyway. (The Pink Stuff reference in the video is a little fruit salad with cool whip that turns pink from the cherries and strawberries.)

On Sunday we went high, high into the forest and chopped down a Christmas tree. We drove to a different area than the past two years, one which ended up being more Ponderosa pine territory (and what we did see was not plentiful). But we lucked up and found a lone, perfect spruce. We wasted no time trying to get it down. Turned out to be quite thick and heavy (a lot of sawing).



We had to cut probably 3 feet off it just to get it to fully stand in our house. Check out how big it was when we first stood it upright. We shaped it down considerably but still have some more to do.


Then guess what? I'd just tucked myself into bed when ... big thud sound. I searched around in the hallway bathroom and closet thinking something in there fell, since I'd just been rummaging around in the closet. Nothing. I descended the stairs and could see in the dark that the tree was no longer standing.

We were lucky on many levels: first that neither human nor dog was in the way; second that it fell at just the right angle so as not to crash into our big bookcase/china cabinet with glass doors (filled with many breakable and precious things) or the coffee table -- it fell just between the two; and third that I had not decorated it yet, as all of our ornaments are one-of-a kind momentos/collectibles from trips and/or are hand-painted and breakable... or, now that we have children, are homemade treasures from the kids. Anyway, I mopped the water and swept the needles while Michael anchored the tree to the wall.

Hopefully, we'll get around to decorating it soon.