First, let me wish y'all a belated Happy Thanksgiving. It was a very different Thanksgiving for us. Usually, we gather together with friends and celebrate the day as one big happy family. Well, this year, we still celebrated as one big happy family. Only this time, it truly was one big happy family. Our family. Okay, so perhaps four isn't "big" but we are happy and we are a family. We decided to stay at home and enjoyed just being us...our family.
We had a traditional Thanksgiving feast of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green salad, and pumpkim pie. And we brought the "next generation" into the mix by having Samantha cook the turkey. I walked her through all the steps involved and, yes, I did help some. But she did a lot of the work. She chopped all the veggies for the stuffing (using my mom's recipe) while I cleaned the turkey. Once the stuffing was made, I stuffed the bird (she wasn't too keen about sticking her hands into the moist mix and packing it into the turkey). And this year, we tried our first ever fresh (we usually go with frozen) free-range turkey.
Next, Samantha peeled all the potatoes (and there were MANY, even for just the four of us), then she and Nicholas made the salad. She wanted to create most of the meal and seemed to enjoy it. I didn't have to do much at all. Kinda nice, actually.
As for the meal, it was delicious! The turkey was golden brown...perfect! When I bought the bird, the butcher said that most people can taste the difference when cooking up a free-range turkey. And I think he's right. It seemed to have a better flavor. And it was very moist and tender. YUMMM! Everything was wonderful and the good part....leftovers!
Mat and Nicholas had a sleepover in Nicholas' room while Samantha and I did the same. Why? Black Friday! Yep, keeping to my annual shopping tradition, I headed out early for some power shopping. But this year, Samantha was initiated into the craziness that is the biggest shopping day of the year. We were able to get dressed and outta the house without waking the boys.
We hit the road around 5:20 a.m. and made it to the mall in short order. Hit several of our favorite mall stores (Bath and Body Works, Aeropostale, Claire's, J.C. Penney's) before we headed to Pier 1 and Fred Meyer. Met the boys for breakfast around 9:30, then out for round two (Target, Lemon Grass, Gadgets and Goodies...did we miss anything?). We were done by 2pm. Most of the items on our list were checked off but still a few more to go. It was really fun to be able to share in this holiday tradition with Samantha. And she seemed to enjoy it, too. Even said she wants to go out with me again in 2010. Now, THAT'S something to look forward to.
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