Saturday, November 29, 2014

Happy Thanksgiving And Beyond

I hope everyone had a wonderful day!  I had yesterday (Wed.) off so I'm in the middle of an already too-short five-day weekend. (This next paragraph I wrote on FB and I'm including it here for the stone-age-loving members of our family and friends who don't "do" Face Book, so those of you who have already read it, it won't hurt m feelings if you skip over this part.)

This holiday, more than any other, stirs up my yearnings for the old "hearth and home!" I am overly encumbered with the memories: the walls of the house bulging with the chattering presence of loved ones surrounded by tantalizing aromas, clanking din of dishes and the rough-and-tumble yelps of a rousing game of nerf football out in the yard. And at the same time, am warmed through with the current reality of spending this Thanksgiving with my two "best beloveds!"  

Even if we are a couple of soup sandwiches sometimes...as we were today.

We planned to forgo the traditional turkey-dressing-gravy-sweet potato spoon bread-Grandmother's clover leaf rolls, NO greenbean casserole blow-out this year and get some Korean and/or Chinese take-out.  I wondered if we shouldn't have picked the food up yesterday, but I guess we believe too much in movies to think those places would be closed on Thanksgiving!  

So, after driving around to see if any place good was open, we just came home and decided on Christmas breakfast for Thanksgiving.  A quick and homey repast of cinnamon-vanilla Dutch Baby Pancakes, DIY blueberry syrup kicked up with honey, scrambled eggs and bacon.  Then we got out the Christmas Crackers, which are still a little unnerving to Desmond.

We did manage to buy our favorite lemon-meringue pie the other day and Desmond helped me whip up some cream with a wisk...not that we use the whipped cream on that particular pie, but this is an activity he loves to do, so we did it in celebration of the day.  Yes, we are perfect Norman Rockwell subjects:



We may or may not go get the Asian food tomorrow, depending upon how hungry we let ourselves get.  Today's decision turned out to be just the right thing and we don't feel as though we need to make up for it tomorrow.

A friend of mine from Alaska is swinging by tomorrow on her way home from Minnesota for at least part of this weekend.  She has another friend who lives up north on the border and has use of a summer home and has invited us to stay up there for a few days.  We decided against doing that because that's just too long a trip right now for Desmond.  But she thought it would be fun to be on the beach, etc., and I think it would probably be a fun little road trip, too, but we're just about road-tripped out for a while.  Sometimes you can stand only so much fun.

So she will stay a night and a day with us and we'll show her around somewhere in this area.  (On Black Friday...eeeek!)

Here's a sweet sentiment for topping off that slice of pie you're having for a late-night snack: (I read this on another blog: The Blind Pig and the Acorn)

"The winds of Thanksgiving always blew toward the big white house that used to sit back from the river here. Once a year they whistled up the clan, calling the kin back from city and town and the hills around. There was the pull of family in them, the yearning of kin to be with kin. Uncle Jake always said - and Aunt Minnie agreed - that Thanksgiving needed family."
~John Parris

5 comments:

Gorges Smythe said...

Sounds like some wise decisions there. Like the quote.

Unknown said...

Our Thanksgiving celebrations are also rather subdued in comparison to those when we were better able to have them. In any event, I am glad you had a good one.

DeEtta said...

The way you write always makes everything sound fun. Sounds like a perfect day with family.

Penny said...

Gorges, sometimes the best decisions are ones that lead to simplifying the situation. this is the second quote I've read from John Parris from some one else. I may just need to find something complete by him read.
Jerry, thanks, I hope your subdued celebrations were a source of peace and comfort to you.
DeEtta, it really was a nice day...and yours sounded very nice, too...I wish we had Chuck-A-Rama here in WA!

Unknown said...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!