Annnnnnd ….
We’re ready. I spent most of today cleaning the crap out of my house (sometimes literally, but never mind). We only host Thanksgiving for Kevin’s family every third year (we trade off with his two sisters), but I sometimes swear it’s our turn more often than it’s theirs.
Whenever we host Thanksgiving, I overkill – a lot. We usually use Thanksgiving as our excuse to get some things done around the house. We don’t do these things BECAUSE of Thanksgiving, we do these things because it gives us a deadline to finally do what we’ve talked about doing for years.
For example THIS go-around we:
- Completely gutted our kitchen and put in new cabinets, appliances and floor.
- Ripped up our carpet from the living/dining room and put in hardwood floors, complete with new love seat/sofa and TV media center (or commonly referred to as an entertainment center for us hillbilly types)
- Repainted our front bathroom walls and cabinet, put in a new counter top and sink and new accessories.
- Got a new roof. (Which leaks – don’t even get me started).
And if we had had time, we would have ripped the carpet out of our family room (it’s buckling – HOW ANNOYING considering the carpet is only THREE years old! GRR) and put in hand-scraped wood. (Our family room is an outdoorsy-type room – rock fireplace, paneled walls). But we ran out of time so … that will get done before NEXT Thanksgiving dinner.
Anyhoo …
I am now putting the yeast rolls into the warming drawer because the house is too cold for them to rise otherwise. Kevin plans on putting the turkey into the oven at midnight and then getting up at 6:00 to take it out and carve it up. Doing it this way will save time and counter-top space in the morning as we can get the turkey carved, put away and the mess cleaned up to make room for our other dishes.
I plan on making The Pioneer Woman’s mouth-watering mashed potatoes, stuffing, and deviled eggs. My sisters-in-laws are bringing veggie dishes and my mother-in-law is bringing the pies (she usually cooks about ten of them).
We’re cooking a Honeysuckle turkey and using some special vegan butter because my niece has all sorts of food allergies and I wanted to be able to make at least one thing she could eat with the rest of us (her mom will have to bring other foods for her to eat). I feel sorry for the girl – it must really suck to not be able to eat what you want to eat.
We plan on eating at noon and then we’ll likely play games, eat pie, play more games, eat left overs for dinner, play more games and then Kevin’s family will likely leave about 7:00 p.m.
It’s going to be a long day … but it’s going to be a great day. 🙂
Write From Karen 