Thanksgiving

Bill and I were looking at spending Thanksgiving on our own this year.  Tom would be celebrating with friends in Wichita and Chris had to work.  Cindy and Jim decided not to celebrate with family this year so I invited them to have dinner with us.  They have included us in a lot of family and holiday celebrations the last few years so we were more than happy to reciprocate this year.  It was also the first time that they were going to be seeing the new kitchen since they have had to miss a couple invitations in the last couple of months.

I got started with my preparations the day before.  I always try to get my baking out of the way the day before to leave the oven available for the turkey and sides that need to go in.  Bill wanted to start his day with a 25 mile hike in Forest Park so that he could eat guilt-free.  We got up about 0330 in the morning to head over to Portland and get to the trail head.  When we got there, it felt kind of spooky with it being so dark and a little foggy.  I felt like I was stepping into an episode of "Grimm".  When I told Bill that, he came back with "they probably filmed it here".  I know that they certainly would have done some filming in the park itself.

I got home at 0500 and got straight to work cooking and cleaning and didn't have a chance to sit down and take a break until noon.  Bill was ready for his pickup at about 1430 and literally just got done showering when our guests arrived.

We had a lovely meal and enjoyed the company.  Definitely beat celebrating the day by ourselves.

Christopher came down from Bellingham after work on Friday so he got here in the wee hours Saturday morning.  When I asked him how he wanted to celebrate the holiday (reminding him that I had a lot of leftovers), he wanted to make Leftover Turkey Curry to use some of our leftovers.  That is so him!  He has never really liked a traditional Thanksgiving dinner anyway and he had already had five turkey dinners at the mission this week so he wasn't up to having another one.  I got the ingredients together and bought some naan and Indian Thanksgiving is what we had.  He also wanted Turkey Cranberry Quesadillas on Sunday before he headed back home.

We hadn't seen Chris since before his birthday three months ago so I was really happy to see him.  We didn't do anything too exciting.  Walking at Salmon Creek Park Sunday morning was about as exciting as it got.  Enjoyed our visit and will look forward to seeing him again for New Years Weekend.

We definitely have a lot to be thankful for.  I didn't do a 30 Days of Gratitude project but I did devote a week of my journal this year to what I am grateful for.  

Hoping all my family and friends had a great Thanksgiving and are looking forward to a joyful holiday season.