Turkey day recap

I said I was going to write about Thanksgiving after the fact. I need to learn to keep my mouth shut. Under promise, over deliver is my new mantra.

First of all, I think they moved Thanksgiving up this year. It came really fast and I simply wasn’t prepared. The shopping got done on Tuesday, in the wee hours of the morning, by my husband. (See my previous post about Thanksgiving, specifically the challenges that husband- shopping poses, to understand my issues.) Anyway, if you have ever cooked a Thanksgiving dinner, you understand that it really does take more than 36 hours to thaw a frozen turkey. A turkey to feed me and my husband and my 1 and 4 year olds probably could have thawed in 36 hours (or less), but we did not get one of those. Nope. My husband got a turkey that would feed our usual household of people, but, as luck would have it, we did not have our usual multitude this year. Family members got sick, others had to work, friends went out of town. It ended up being just us. It was cozy, intimate. I’d like to say peaceful, less work, and quiet, too, but that would be a big fat frozen turkey lie.

Even though we had about 16 fewer guests than usual, my husband could not seem to be able to negotiate the menu. I tried to cut out dishes. I tried to pare things down. He simply was not able to forego the ambrosia or the mashed potatoes or the potato salad or the sweet potato casserole or the asparagus casserole or the green bean casserole or the stuffing or the cranberry sauce or the orange carrot bisque or the dinner rolls or the pecan pie or the pumpkin pie or the budge. (Budge is what Joy calls fudge. Actually, Joy was the one who couldn’t live without the budge…but I am certain that my husband would have insisted if she hadn’t.) Yes, I made all of this, in addition to a 22 pound FROZEN turkey, for four of us, two of which have stomachs the size of small citrus fruits. (Incidentally, after touching and handling a raw, albeit frozen, turkey, I kind of get the ick and can’t really eat all that much. I have issues. I know.)

This year, for a fun, new holiday twist, I decided to get sick. Actually, I got sick about 5 days earlier. It started with a sore throat, and then it turned into chest congestion and a cough. I never felt bad enough to stay in bed, but I wasn’t my usual Energizer Bunny self. The cherry on top of the cake (or the whipped cream on top of the pumpkin pie?) was that I coughed so hard that I cracked a rib. I don’t want anyone accusing me of not going all out. Heaven forbid! (Maybe it wasn’t to appear to be a super hero, but rather to show my sympathy for the main dish…who knows? Next year I’m going to add spare ribs to the menu in case I crack another one, AND because my husband doesn’t want our Thanksgiving table to look bare.)

All’s well that ends well, I guess. Joy helped me put up my decoration, so my house did look Martha-esque. You can cook a frozen turkey safely. The leftovers heat up pretty well and you don’t have to cook anything new for a long, long time. Marlo went to bed early. She got all tuckered out from the excitement of the day. Joy fell asleep on the couch watching a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Then I fell asleep watching Martha Stewart’s Holiday Special. I was thankful for a lot of things, but mostly that it was over.


Posted by The Editor for Busy Body