Thanksgiving

Let's start with Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday here in America. But in the Hargrave family, Thanksgiving is always on the Saturday after. This is because Mary (Matt's mom) is a nurse and works most Thanksgivings, and also because it is easier for everybody to travel on a weekend instead of in the middle of the week. Every Thanksgiving for my entire life, all I have had to do during this holiday was show up. We almost always went to somebody else's home, and if I was assigned something to bring, it was something like rolls or a pie which could be easily made and forgotten.

Not this year. This year we hosted Thanksgiving at our home. With 17 people in attendance. It started out as a family thing, but slowly throughout the month of November people began having interferences and couldn't make it. Almost in unison with the absence of family, however, several of our close friends here mentioned that they missed the big Thanksgivings their own extended families would be having without them, as it is so expensive to travel for such a short holiday. So little by little, friends took the place of family until Saturday when we had a house full of people and food and good times. Mary and Wayne were still able to attend, and even spent the night. All in all it was a fantastic Thanksgiving. And the best part? Besides providing the tables and chairs and centerpieces, I hardly had to cook anything because everybody brought so much with them. It was wonderful.

We did, of course, do the turkey and ham, but I left Matt in charge of those (which meant that Mary actually did the ham. Thanks Mary.) But Matt decided we were going to deep-fry our turkey in peanut oil. Oh. My. Goodness. I have eaten 25 turkeys in my lifetime and this was easily the best one I have ever had. It was crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside and nothing started on fire while we were cooking it. Defiantly something to be thankful for.