"Happy Thanksgiving!!! May your day be filled with great food, amazing family and friends and loads of fun! This wonderful holiday is a true example that the best things in life aren't things."
....and in my opinion, truer words have never been spoken.
It's hard being so far away from my family during the year but throw a holiday in and it can really get to a gal. We make attempts on holidays to visit over the phone, through texts and Facebook messages but its not the same. It's different. We are busy, hosting or visiting and the day seems to go by so fast. I try not to focus on what I am missing and I think of how lucky I am that I have such a wonderful family to miss and friends to celebrate with.
I love that my Mom still hosts the holidays and my brother, sister and their families as well as my Aunt and Uncle join in the celebration. I love that my Dad needs to extend the already big rectangular table in the dining room so they can all sit together. I love that they pass my Mom's delicious turkey, Aunt Barbs cardamom rolls, the cranberry sauce with Amaretto and all the other fixins' worthy of a grand feast. And I love that my niece in Oklahoma made the cutest cookie/candy turkey's for her table this year and is celebrating with her family and her in-laws.
We have celebrated Thanksgiving with our dear friends since 1995 and sometimes there have been big crowds and sometimes it's just the four of us but it's always wonderful. One year we celebrated with my sweet cousin when she lived here which was extra special. She has since moved back to the East coast and has a beautiful family of her own to celebrate with, along with her parents and in-laws.
It makes me enormously happy knowing that although we are all so scattered and far away, we are all consumed by the same holiday and we are all grateful for what we are blessed with.
This year was just the four of us, and our two canine friends of course, and it was beautiful.
The sides were delicious, the champagne was chilled...
and the turkey was perfect, yes I said it, the thing cooks should never say but my friends said it first so I am just repeating it. They actually all agreed, it may just have been the best turkey I have ever made. Yay!
Oh, and that delicious Cranberry Sauce with Amaretto was passed down to me from the lovely lady in the background, and it's been on our table for the past 17 years.
I dream of a big home only a few times a year and its usually when I envision these types of grand celebrations. I picture all of my family and dear friends gathered around the same table toasting each other, passing rutabagas, and professing gratitude. I think of them all playing cards or Apples to Apples until the wee hours of the morning and extending the holiday through the entire weekend. Oh how fabulous would that celebration be?
We rejoiced this holiday and with grateful hearts, we enjoyed all the blessings in our lives the near ones and the far away ones.
I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving.
