Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a strange holiday to me, I'm grateful for it for reminding people we should be thankful, but something I don't really get is why we have to set time aside each year to be reminded to be thankful. Shouldn't we be thankful everyday? I've been watching posts on Facebook all month long and people writing the things they are thankful for and I have noticed that a lot of people who are usually complainers have found plenty of things this month to be thankful for, so why not challenge yourself to find something to be thankful for 365 days a year and let's celebrate how great life is on Thanksgiving. Few of us have less than we need and most of us have more than we need yet we still manage to spend a lot of energy complaining rather than celebrating what life offers us. No one has ever said life was easy. It's not supposed to be, but when we put our energies toward being grateful for all that we have - even if it isn't much, we bring so much more into our lives. I try each day to find something to be grateful for. I'm not saying it's easy, but try it and see if life doesn't seem so much better? Now, onto my post...

For Thanksgiving this year we went to my parents house. My mom recently had her knee replaced and wasn't able to stand long enough to make a Thanksgiving meal and my grandmother is no longer able to cook giant meals like Thanksgiving. They have always had a traditional meal and this year they were going to go to Cracker Barrel. We usually stay home on Thanksgiving and the whole cooking thing is usually a huge family affair and we don't usually have turkey we usually have something less traditional. We don't typically gather with family so that we can carve out our own family tradition with just the four of us, but this year, I went all out wanting to give back to my folks. I've never made a turkey of any size before. I think one year I bought a boneless turkey that was already stuffed and seasoned and I don't remember it being all that good. This year, I did my research and settled on this recipe. Kalib helped me with the brine, but he wasn't too into touching the turkey (can't say I blame him on that one) and that 12 pound turkey submersed in water barely fit in my refrigerator. Jason got up with me at 6am the next morning (EARLY for me) to help me get all the veggies cut up and the turkey washed and stuffed and into the oven. We were trying to give it plenty of cooking time to have it ready for lunch. The goal was to have all the food done and on the way to my parents in time to eat by 2. My turkey was done at 9:30 am - I was of the impression turkey's usually take 5 or 6 hours to cook a turkey - evidently not - at least not mine... We got up early for no reason, but it turned out all right because we were able to get the potatoes in the oven earlier and we were able to eat at 1pm. I also made roasted sweet potatoes along with yukon gold potatoes - this was my favorite thing I fixed. I made collards fresh picked from the garden, asparagus, green beans with almond slices, mac n cheese, a loaf of fresh bread and India made a cake. My mom wanted to contribute, so she made stuffing. The food was so yummy and my turkey turned out to be delicious. It was a good day and my parents were super happy they didn't end up at the Cracker Barrel for Thanksgiving (Not that there's anything wrong with that, but they just prefer the tradition). I'm glad we ended up doing what we did. My parents bend over backwards to help us out and they are such an important part of our lives. I'm glad we were able to give something back to them... not to mention we have so many left overs that I haven't had to really cook since Thursday.