Thanksgiving Day 2023

David helped me prep the chili board for lunch!
Grandpa made the green pozole and Gramma made the red chili.
It was a hit!
The 1,000 piece puzzle finished at 12:15.
The next 1,000 piece puzzle started at 12:50!

Friends of ours—Scott and Wendy—also joined us this year as she was visiting from Seattle and they didn’t have other plans! She loves Thanksgiving and cooking so she brought most of the sides to go with Tom’s smoked turkey and smoked ham!

Thanksgiving tip? Gravy in an insulated pitcher! Pourable plus it stays warm!

Dinner is served!
We were all gathered around the kitchen for grace…and I looked over and both dogs were in the circle with us!
Three drinks going at once (water, rum punch, and wine)!
Helping clean up!

The evening was spent watching football, playing cards, puzzling, and visiting!

Our first hosted Thanksgiving dinner!

I was so busy with a houseful of guests and dinner prep that I barely had time to look at my phone (so most of these are from everyone else)! But it was so worth it to have everyone together — from Georgia (Filipek), Michigan (Schwalm & Coe), and Illinois (Schwalm & Hudson). And our best friends joined us, too…and fit right in!

Puzzle #2
Still can’t believe Izzy’s a college sophomore!
Izzy wanted to steal Olive.

Then we did some reenactment shots!

I can’t believe it was 22 years between these photos. But we all still look the same, right?! Also: no kids in 2000, six kids in 2022!

The whole gang!
Yes, two turkeys. Smoked and fried!
We easily had enough food for 4x as many people.
Kids table
Photobomber!

Let the family festivities begin!

We excitedly volunteered to host the Schwalm side family thanksgiving this year—Filipeks usually host in Atlanta but they’ve recently downsized and didn’t have room. We had plenty of room for everyone (most even stayed with us—kicking the kids out of their rooms of course)!

Everyone had varied arrival times, but by Wednesday afternoon everyone was here! It makes my heart so happy to see my kids having fun with their cousins.

Puzzle #1
A little rest in some downtime.

Dinner for 21 is served! Charcuterie that takes up our entire kitchen island!

Cousins
Even family ends up gathering at the bar…I think we need stadium seating!

Nothing says Thanksgiving like deep dish pizza!

We were going to have dinner with Anna and David but Covid kinda put a stop to that…and since the kids don’t really like any typical Thanksgiving fare, we opted against all the work and Tom made pizza (and I made mozzarella bread balls)! It was yummy!

Aaaaaand what would Thanksgiving be without…a chocolate martini…?!

We were Gobbled!

We heard the Ring go off and all of us ignored it because we were sure it was absolutely nothing—again—but then Katie said maybe we were booed again (yeah, right, okay) and ran out to check and I’ll be damned. We were Gobbled!

And here’s the stash from all earlier Boos!

Happy Friendsgiving!

Tom did a thing. (A brined, spatchcocked, and smoked turkey.)

A family photo before we left…

Dinner prep was fun. I got to make gravy. 😄 I didn’t take any pics of the rest off the food but it was all yummy.

A real non-selfie family photo since we had someone who could take the photo for us!

Decorating turkey cookie pieces.

Snuggling with Katie and Anna’s brother’s dog, who I nicknamed Peanut because he was all of maybe 2#, tops.

He cuddled in my lap for at least two hours. No, I don’t want a Chihuahua.

It’s time, y’all. My first drink of the holiday weekend.

😣 Christmas lights were a fail—half the strands were dead.

😣 Realized both Christmas wreaths are too thick for the front door and the storm door won’t shut. (Obviously didn’t care last year?)

😣 Spent all day in the basement looking for the Christmas light projector Tom bought me a few years ago…so we didn’t have to buy new lights…

👎🏼Broke three nails.

👎🏼 Hurt my back.

👎🏼 Had to play peacekeeper with the kids because they couldn’t stop annoying each other.

😣 Never found the projector so started researching a Black Friday deal…then found the projector in one of the very first Christmas boxes.

😣 We have no good place for the tree since we have a new litter box end table where the tree was last year. Tom and I can’t agree what we should do.

😣 Weather was nice so we decided to have a fire…and the wind kicked up so this will be over soon.

Maybe tomorrow will be better. Tonight is looking up already due to this lovely margarita. 💕

And then drink number two. Totally dark at 5:07. I hate this time of year.

Friendsgiving!

We had one of our Saturday Night Dinners for our Thanksgiving this year. We thought we’d keep it simple—we’d do a turkey, mashed potatoes, instant stuffing, fresh bread, and mulled cider; one couple was bringing a sweet potato casserole; and one couple was bringing dessert. Easy, right? Well holy hell it was still a lot of work. Last minute stuff, really, and not hard, but still craziness. Especially at the last minute when I realized I had completely forgotten to start the gravy! (At least I already had the stock ready so it didn’t take long at all.)

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My very first use of a selfie stick!

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I don’t think this is nearly enough food.

We were invited to a friends’ house for Thanksgiving. She and her other guests cook in quantity like we do…so there wasn’t quite enough food for six adults and nine kids. 🙂

Katie’s dinner? A roll, crackers, and cheese. For dessert she tried pumpkin pie, said she liked it, then proceeded to eat just the whipped cream.

Owen’s dinner? A roll, ham, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream.

I did really well overall. I splurged on two glasses of wine throughout the evening…and it was deeelicious. (I haven’t had a glass of wine in probably four months.) Foodwise:

  • 1oz deep-fried pork loin
  • 1/2oz smoked turkey
  • about 3T each of Easter/funeral potatoes, cornbread stuffing, sweet potato casserole, and smoked corn casserole
  • 2 deviled eggs
  • 1 small Hawaiian roll

Dessert was cheesecake. I took a full slice intending to eat the whole thing dammit. And then about halfway through I said “This doesn’t even taste good anymore.” And that was that. Voodoo. 🙂

This is what she picked to wear. And she was damn cute. 🙂

The kids all had fun playing and the adults ended up watching Planes, Trains and Automobiles. 🙂