Thanksgiving Family and Fun

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  I love family time and I am looking forward to Christmas and our REALLY BIG family get together.

I met up at my aunt and uncle’s house.  My older sister Jenny and her husband Will were not in attendance and neither was Kenyon, who had to work.  We still had a large crowd.

These are the turkeys that my grandparents got when they went to dinner at their new retirement community dinner.  They are made from a small candy bar.

 

I look forward to having some wine since I don’t drink unless I am in a social setting.  I try to start with small pours so I can feel like I am having a couple of glasses (also these are really BIG glasses).    I started with St. Chapelle’s Moscato.

 

I then tried some New Age wine my friend Kate gave me.  This is not super sweet but has a nice sparkle to it.  I actually had two small pours of this, one was with dinner.

 

Not to worry!  Lots of H2O was also consumed.

 

I didn’t take many photos of our amazing food spread but this was a cranberry jello mold my Dad made.  It actually has horseradish in it.  It was pretty good.

Mmmm….Rhodes rolls are just as good as homemade but without all the work.  I often skip the roll since I have both wine and dessert but I have been really craving carbs lately.  So I enjoyed a roll and talked myself OUT of eating second one!

My cute nieces “toasting” with their sparking cider.

Here is my plate.  I got some turkey and ham along with mashed potatoes and gravy.  The gravy is a port wine reduction gravy and is super rich.  I had some cranberry and the cranberry jello mold, salad, one sweet potato bit, a few bites of stuffing, and a roll.   For those of you that are hard-core WW members, you will notice that I didn’t follow the TNT rule (Things Not Touching) on my plate.  Thanksgiving is too yummy to follow the rules!

I forgot the corn casserole so I had to make some room and get a little.

I was one of the first to finish, I still have not mastered the act of slow eating, and after thinking on it a bit I wanted more turkey, ham, and corn casserole.

Part way through eating my aunt informed us we were eating with my Great Grandma Birmingham’s silver.  These were uncovered in my gandparent’s recent move and the sell of their house.  Grandma B would be 100 years old but she passed way at age 93.

I should have waited and had my dessert later in the evening.  Since I am on the graveyard shift and was going to be up all night that would have made the most sense.  Since I didn’t do that, I enjoyed some of my sister Jenny’s chocolate wine cake and one of her homemade caramels.  I also had some Marie Calendar’s Razzleberry pie.  It is a favorite.  Whip cream on the side and some coffee.

My aunt and I took the girls for a walk to see the lamas that live a few houses down.  Lamas are freaky animals!  Even when it would turn its head away from us the eyes were ALWAYS watching.  Freaky!

Several houses further down the road was an actual lama out on the street.  They were taking it for a walk!  We got to pet it and the girls let me take a photo.

When we weren’t looking at lamas the girls I were entertaining ourselves by playing hide and seek.  Emma, who is 3, isn’t very good at waiting to be found.  I wouldn’t have seen her hidden under the pillows except she popped up and looked at us.  Great hiding spot!

 

I had the first of my Thanksgiving leftovers at home before I headed out to a 10pm movie.  I chopped up some turkey, an apple, and some smoked gouda and made a salad.

 

I brought home two rolls along with some turkey and ham so I plan to make sandwiches the next few days.  Yum!