Not the easiest Thanksgiving due to husband-induced anxiety, but today I'm grateful that:
1. I had a calm happy day with my children and husband safe around me.
2. No one was hospitalized and my husband's foot didn't explode or otherwise act up any wildly dramatic fashion.
3. My husband has tenure so we don't have to worry about losing job, house, or medical insurance.
4. There is such a thing as Tofurkey so that my newly, but not deeply, vegetarian teens could have something approaching the regular old Thanksgiving dinner that they wanted.
5. All the food, including the turkey and the Tofurkey, got done at the same time so we could all sit down together to eat. Often we're not that well organized and synchronized.
6. My teens seem to be growing out of their hormonally insane phase and were actually really nice company today. They even played cards with their younger sister during the day and hung out and chatted with their dad after dinner (while the youngest and I waltzed around the living room to Christmas music).
So, a good day.
11 comments:
Nobody's house ever looked like that on Thanksgiving day - except in the movies or on cards. And god knows more disasters probably occurred because poor mothers, particularly, were desperately trying to recreated that scene.
Yours sounds like a perfect, normal and lovely Thanksgiving. Glad the hubby's foot did nothing to add to the festivities.
Baci di Roma
donna reed lives..
Willym - Thanks for the adorable email card. I showed it to the daughters and they were all enchanted. Wouldn't it be nice if pies really did make themselves like that! Thanks also, dear, for being such a good cyber friend through my recent ups and downs. It means a lot to me in these times of worry.
xoxo to you and Laurent
Granny - Maybe, but not in my house! Hope your day was good. Your email/prayer brought tears to my eyes. Thanks to you, too, for all the laughs and prayers and candles and emails. Hugs to you.
Bwa-ha-ha! LOVE the caption -- "In this friendly, freedom-loving land, beer belongs! America's beverage of moderation." Hahaha -- holy busted guts, that gave me a laugh.
OK, now that I've got that out of my system, it's nice to stop and think about what we have to be thankful for, even in these times of uncertainty. I'm glad your husband's job is safe - something not to take for granted in present conditions, that's for sure. So glad you had a nice day, all together.
We've been doing vegetarian Thanksgiving dinners for probably 9 or 10 years now. We did the Tofurkey thing a couple of times, but now we just have what others would call a side dish extravaganza ('cause you know it's not a main dish unless it's meat, in this country!). We don't miss the bird at all, Teen Demon makes a killer mushroom gravy from scratch to go with the mashed 'taters, so we still have that.
We're doing our big dinner today, so I'd best get back to cooking!
Oh, and would your teens perhaps be 13? I ask because 12 seems to be the universal Year of Hell. Glad they're coming out of the hormone crazies! Definitely something to be thankful for!
Your Turkey day sounded great. I am thankful I found your blog because I love reading your little snippets on your life.
Your number 4 gives you comfort, but me a bit of fear.
Happy (post) Thanksgiving!
Cowbell - Isn't that ad great? It's from an old Redbook I found - 1953 or 54 I think. There was a series of these ads clearly trying to market beer to women. Here's a link to another in the series in my
flickraccount.
I think the teens were a little underwhelmed by the tofurkey, so maybe next year we'll do some version of side dish extravaganza. I'd love to have that recipe for mushroom gravy. To me, the gravy is the best part of the turkey anyway. They're 15. 13 and 14 were the bad years for us.
Sage - Likewise dear.
Jason - There is no need to be afraid! The tofurk is a shy and gentle, if boring, creature. It's native habitat is the hippie-rich aisles of your neighborhood food cooperative. It rarely ventures beyond that safety zone. In the South it only occurs in isolated pockets around college campuses (e.g. Athens, Austin, Raleigh-Durham, and possibly Baton Rouge.) It has never been sighted in Alabama or Mississippi.
Ha! Loved the link. I'll get the recipe from TD and email it. She made it the night before this year, and it was very good -- I think the flavors really got a chance to come out.
Ha! I love your label about giving thanks for your house not looking like that ad! Glad you had a nice one! Having just been through a family extravanganza myself, I wonder why I always expect the worst...why do I underestimate my family's capacity to rise to the occasion? ("rise to the occasion" was my grandma's mantra. And she always did..). As a fairly recent convert to vegetarianism (coming up to my one year anniversary!) I am delighted to hear about your teens and the Tofurkey and your comment about side dishes has particular resonance! Glad to hear about your husband's tenure - must be a weight off your minds - and I hope his foot is not too painful and alarming..
We, of course, don't have Thanksgiving here. But I like the idea of pausing to feel thankful for the good stuff, as you have here, my dear!
x
Welcome back! And I look forward to hearing more about the family shennanegans.Hope you felt M. was appreciated and valued as highly as he should be. Anyway, glad you're back. I've missed my most "sympa" (as the French say) flickr funster.
xoxo E
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