I arrived in Ballwin, MO, on November 22nd, Tuesday. Thanksgiving was the 25th, Thursday. I hardly had a chance to settle in before the cooking began on the 24th, Wednesday. We were preparing all of the traditional American dishes plus a few from our own family traditions--a veritable feast of fat. It was a full day!
On Thanksgiving Day, the turkey went in the oven (American tradition), and the hors d'oeuvres came out of the refrigerator (family tradition). We grazed as we cooked and drank and waited for our guests to arrive. The place was hopping!
My sister (Shari) and brother-in-law (Jim) have a townhome which is much smaller than either of their homes prior to marriage (May of 2020). They pared down when they married. The problem with that is that they were combining two well-established households of HER stuff and HIS stuff, and crammed it all into a smaller space. Just the three of us bouncing around sometimes get in each other's way. Add five more people to the mix--three of them young children--and you get a chaotic dough of half-baked edibles. <---(That's a metaphor that doesn't work. Sorry!) Our Thanksgiving guests were Shari's grandson Jeremy, wife Amanda, and their three kids, 14, 7, and 2. They arrived about noon and filled up our senses! <--- (That's a John Denver metaphor that also doesn't work!)
Jeremy is a soldier in the Army Reserves who came home from a year's deployment to Poland a year ago just prior to Thanksgiving. I hadn't seen him since then, so he had pictures and stories to share, and I was an interested listener. Most interesting was his unguided tour of Auschwitz with some of his Army buddies. The experience moved him, and moved ME, in our conversation. It was nice to see that crew again!
When it came time to give the blessing before the feast, Jeremy was elected by default. He read from the cross stitch on the wall that I worked years ago: Popo's Grace. Popo was our grandfather who gave the same grace every time. It was a nice touch.
We ate well, as you might suspect: turkey, stuffing/dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, candied sweet potatoes, corn bread casserole, green beans, cranberries, mandarin orange Jello "salad", rolls, pickled beets and bread-and-butter pickles, deviled eggs, and pumpkin pie/chocolate silk pie/coconut cream pie for dessert, with cheesecake in reserve. In other words, we didn't have to send out for pizza!
I missed my own family, of course, but it was nice to break bread with my extended family. God bless us, everyone!
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