Thanksgiving

We had a first for the Peterson Family. We spent Thanksgiving day at home with just ourselves. Never before in 15 years have we not spent it with another family, weather that be relatives or friends. It just worked out that way. I would have preferred to have spent it with more people. Not that there is anything wrong with just us, after all...we ARE family. It just goes back to how I was brought up and how big family gatherings are what holidays are all about. As it turns out, no one invited us over and we didn't know of anyone that didn't have somewhere to go. (We have in the past invited over friends who also had no family in the area.)

We had already celebrated the holiday with my family (mentioned a few posts ago). We decided to venture into the experience with excitement of doing something new. I was worried though. As much as I was trying to be all chin up about this, I was expecting to really struggle with this new idea. We had one previous experience with a holiday of "just us". The Christmas I was due with Brianna, we didn't want to risk traveling right before my due date, so we stayed home. That was a disaster that ended with tears and an emotional pregnant woman. Granted, I was already an emotional pregnant woman.....I just never wanted to experience a holiday like that again.

Once the day came though it wasn't that bad. It was nice to sleep in and not worry about either entertaining or having to be somewhere at a certain time. I went out for a mid morning run. The kids watched the parade on t.v. We at random intervals started prepping food, again with no pressure of an exact time for it to be served. Dinner was going to be whenever it was ready. We even went out shopping at WalMart. Just your regular shopping for necessities. We have found that the store is actually very empty on this holiday (of course, everyone is celebrating with their family & friends) and we really enjoy that. There is no way I was going to fight the crowds the next day (Black Friday) just for some toilet paper & laundry soap.

Once we had our official Thanksgiving dinner (Jim did declare my turkey to be PERFECT!) we put up the Christmas tree. Later we decided to try something new & took the kids bowling. They were running a special price & we took advantage of that since we rarely go bowling. It turned out to be a very nice Thanksgiving.

Prepping for dinner:
Angel posing by her pies. She made the lattice cherry pie. She also made the apple pie, but I designed the top. The kids ooohed & awwwed over my culinary skills of pie decorating. I learned many things years ago in cook school that I don't use very often now. It was nice to dazzle my family over something so simple.

It is really hard to get a family picture gathered around the table when you have to use the timer. And when you realize that you have something either very high or very low to set the camera on. There was no happy medium. I got the shot, even though you only see the top of Carmen's head and you get to see my lovely drapes. It was our lovely Thanksgiving dinner none the less.