I hope everyone had a great holiday (for those who celebrated.) Ours was really nice- a couple glitches as always, but overall a success. Let’s start with…
Thanksgiving Eve
This was a day of pie making and Christmas tree getting! We like to get our tree the day before Thanksgiving, but we wait till Black Friday to decorate it.
Our cat was very interested in these developments…
We had a Thanksgiving Eve charcuterie board! SriMu is a fancy-schmancy vegan cheese that we order for special occasions.
Then the pie making commenced. After all my ranting and raving about pie, I felt like they came out EVEN WORSE THAN USUAL. Seriously. I know I said I’m not that great at it, but I’m not usually THIS bad.
The crusts looked great before they went in the oven, so I’m not sure what happened. The fillings were all good though… so we still got to eat pie, and that’s the important thing.
Thanksgiving Day
Everything went great! Nothing burned, the house didn’t fill with smoke, and we didn’t forget anything… EXCEPT THE CRANBERRIES. It was around noon that my son asked about the cranberry sauce, which is when I realized I somehow forgot to put it on the shopping list the day before. My husband was elected to run out to the store- always fun on Thanksgiving Day- and returned home with a can of Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce. Mmmm! High fructose corn syrup! That’s okay… I wasn’t eating it anyway, and the family thought it was just fine.
The biggest triumph of the day was this…
We always say we want to eat Thanksgiving dinner at 4:00, but never manage to have it ready in time. It’s usually around 6:00, but as you can see, this year we ate at 4:07!
My son and husband made this salad, which deserves its own picture:
After we ate we went for a walk, then watched Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Then we had pie! And it was still early enough for the food to digest before bed- yay.
Black Friday
Groan. I always work on Black Friday, while the rest of the family lounges at home. To cheer myself up a little, I stopped at Starbucks on the way to work, and when I got home, the first thing I did was eat a piece of pie.
Then we decorated the tree! We made the controversial decision to move the tree away from the window this year (I think it fits in the living room better this way.) Also controversial is the star. Our old one stopped lighting up, so my son and husband ran out to get this one while I was at work. I think it’s a little small- what do you think?
The rest of the house is about halfway decorated. It’s a big job, because first it had to be de-pumpkined. I’m a little sad that pumpkin season is over, and sad that my son goes back to school tomorrow. This was such a fun week.
But, onward! It’s time for gingerbread and Christmas music! I can’t be sad for long.
How was your Thanksgiving? Did you forget anything? Any emergency trips to the store?
20 Responses
Your tree looks great! Ours is going up this weekend. My husband finished the outdoor decorations yesterday; it is a huge process as we have a lot!
Oh, I’m envious! I’m in charge of getting the outdoor lights up, and I’m not looking forward to it.
I want that salad!!!! It looks delicious.
We always have our Thanksgiving meal at night because one of my SIL’s has to split her time between her inlaws and us. They get the day shift and we get the night shift. It works out.
I bought two cans of cranberry sauce and between 12 people we ate 1/4 of one can. Oh well.
Yes, not much of the cranberry sauce was actually eaten- but it would have been an international incident if we didn’t have any. And, that salad might have been my favorite part of the dinner.
Does your SIL eat two Thanksgiving dinners?
This all looks SO good. And please don’t feel bad about the pie because YOU MADE IT! I think it looks delicious and the crust looks great?
I laughed so hard when you mentioned the house had to be “de-pumpkined”!
We’ll get our real tree in about a week? We have a little one up in the basement and the timing of my husband’s work travel + some really busy days for us with Christmas activies (they’re already starting?!) and I think I need to wait. But I always enjoy the tree so much more before Christmas; to me a tree up into the New Year is always bittersweet and makes me sad (I’ll likely leave it up until the kids go back to school and our company leaves, so Jan 3rd).
Yes, i love the tree before Christmas, but afterwards if makes me sad. We’ve never come up with an official day to take down the tree- but it’s usually right before the kids go back to school. Anyway, I like to have it up as long as possible before Christmas, and the living room looks so pretty now!
I’m with Birchie. We had 24 people and two cans of cranberry sauce and about half a can got consumed. If it were left off the table, there would be no revolt.
We just put up our tree and I’m typing this in front of the lighted up tree as we speak! Let the festive season begin!
Yes, the festive season has officially begun! I would say about… 1/4 cup of cranberry sauce was consumed, if that. Maybe more like 1/8 cup- but I never would have heard the end of it if we didn’t have it.
Your tree looks fabulous, you made an amazing spread, everything was ready on time, AND you made three pies!!! THREE! And the cranberry sauce was remembered in time to buy some! I think that is a resounding success. Hope you are having a lovely weekend!
Yes, we considered it a success overall! The weekend has been nice except that my son left… but he’ll be back soon for Christmas.
As long as the pie tasted good, I think that’s what counts, right? Sometimes it puzzles me how it looks so good in the recipe and so different when I make it 😂 Your salad looks excellent though!
I never tried vegan cheese before. Made me very curious.
Vegan cheese has come a long way! This was delicious.
I don’t think there were any emergency trips to the store at my brother’s. But he had lots of help with the meal from my mom and our other brother. The food was outstanding! My mom made me a couple of little pies with filling – I still have the pumpkin filling to enjoy this week. Everyone had a great time, though, and it was a nice day aside from an epic end of the day tantrum for Will. We ate at 1 which is when he’s usually napping… He’s not sturdy enough to deal w/ schedule shifts. Next year will be better – or that is what i tell myself. We planned to eat at 1 and sat down at 1:07! My brother had an excel spreadsheet w/ plans for how to get the meal on the table on time!
Your tree is pretty! Ours is topped with an Eiffel Tower since I’m a francophile. Paul is a bit confused by this but I’ve explained it’s what we do in this house. 😉 But he’d probably prefer a star!
Next year will DEFINITELY be better! So much changes in a year.
Funny story- we didn’t used to have a light-up star because I thought they looked tacky (we had a regular, pretty star that didn’t light up.) My son always wanted one that lit up, but I kept resisting it. Then one year he said “I know what I’ll do! I’ll ask Santa for a light-up star!” Er… it was the first thing on his Christmas list, and on Christmas morning there was a light up star on top of the tree. So you better hope your Paul doesn’t get that idea!
Ha! No kidding! No last minute gift requests from Santa!! Ahhhh!!
I love that tree. It looks – and I do not mean that in a bad way – a little like a historical toy tree.
Overall your Thanksgiving sounds fun and having dinner on the table only 7 minutes past the set time is like a major achievement.Years of practice I can feel it. That salad looks really really yummy. is this something you will make outside of thanksgiving or that food just for the special occasion?
This is all food we usually only make for Thanksgiving- but I wouldn’t mind having that salad more often.
Oof, an emergency trip to the grocery store on Thanksgiving is rough! We’re not cranberry people over here, so it’s never something I would have ever noticed not being on the table!
Your tree looks beautiful! I think we may have the same tree topper. 🙂
If your tree topper is from Target, it’s the same one!
What a great, successful Thanksgiving (all the food looks delicious) and what a beautiful tree. You picked out a nice one and I think the star-size is just right!