Thanksgiving with the Andersons

What? Did you not see this one coming? How could I not include the Anderson Thanksgiving?! That would be absolutely despicable!

We got started early, of course, because if you're going to feed this family you need more than a day to cook! This "beautacious" pumpkin pie was baked by yours truly and the Rolling Resistor (visit his awesome blog at http://rollingresistor.blogspot.com) on Saturday afternoon. Both first-timers, this pie was indeed monumental. Thank God it tasted monumental, too.

This gorgeous Thursday morning presented leftover donuts and a list of chores to prep the house for the maiden visit to our new house by King and Queen Anderson (aka Gram and Papa). Mom swirled around the kitchen, using her momtastic mommagic to concoct a tryptophan, carbohydrate extravaganza...

1:30-- Andersons arrive! After getting lost of course, because it seems no one can ever find our house the first time around.

Crackers and a funky cheese ball thingy are served, football is watched, conversation is made--- 

we wait.

And soon enough we find ourselves around the table, hand-in-hand, as Dad blesses the food. This moment might just be the best part of Thanksgiving, because even though we're drooling over overflowing plates, we have food on our plates. I have a family to drool over it with, and we roll out with enough turkey and stuffing in our bellies to last weeks on end. Even if the gravy was lumpy, or the dogs attacked the cheese ball while we weren't looking, I have the best life ever. And that is my pre-meal epiphany.

Now for the stuffing!

This year's menu featured all the favorites, and luckily, a buttload of leftovers to stock the fridge and make sandwiches until Christmas!

• Butterball Turkey
• Stuffing/Dressing, whatever floats your boat
• Cranberries, to smother the turkey
• Gravy, to smother everything
• Marshmallow Yams (secretly a dessert...)
• Rolls, to sop up all the smotherings you got carried away with
• and last and definitely least, green beans. Mom admitted that she felt we needed a green on the table. Let me inform you that she did not actually eat any.

6 empty plates later, or 5 empty plates later because I was still working on a hefty second portion, we fell into food comas and told old stories about this and that, and "back in the day..." and  got all nostalgic and sappy about everything families get sappy about. It was wonderful, I connote no sarcasm whatsoever, it was indeed quite nice.

Nice because, each story stalled the big stink awaiting me:

Thanksgiving dishes.

Now you know I don't mind dishes, it is my niche of the kitchen after all. But all you experienced short-stick drawers like me know that it takes some real elbow grease to scrape out that turkey pan. Whew. It takes endurance. That is not for the faint of heart.

After scrubbing the equivalent of a 5K, I was ready for dessert.

It was good.

Enough said.

(I don't remember too much, you know, I was in a food coma.)

And soon enough, it was time to wave goodbye to our senior Anderson extension, and get ready for a super-duper post-Thanksgiving party! Woo!

So we hopped in the hot tub and hopped out, and now it is time to get a head-start on the holiday season with the grand viewing of the one, the only.... Elf!

Have a spectacular Thanksgiving weekend, folks, I look forward to reading all of your "I'm thankful for..." Facebook posts!

But really- be merry, be thankful, and remember the 4 main food groups:

Candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup! :D

(Disclaimer: the Andersons strictly belong to the Anti-Black Friday Association. Do not, repeat, do not expect any Black Friday posts or pictures, because we simply would rather spend the day in our pajamas mocking the people getting trampled for that half-price LED TV. To all of you Pro-Black Friday-ians, good luck out there.)