Thanksgiving 2023 is over…
Category Archives: Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day 2023
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!
The evening was spent watching football, playing cards, puzzling, and visiting!
Pre-Thanksgiving 2023
Everyone was coming for Thanksgiving again this year! So Day 1 dinner prep—smoked ribs—started early!
Gramma Fixit
Yay! Gramma and grandpa are here early for Thanksgiving! So we put Gramma to work sewing up a hole in the beanbag!! Olive thought it was a perfect spot to nap.
The second best part about Thanksgiving!
Holiday decorations go up!
Tom hauls everything up, puts the tree together, then comes back to do the star. Unfortunately the lights in the star were dead and we didn’t realize until it was attached.
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!
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!
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.
Dinner for 21 is served! Charcuterie that takes up our entire kitchen island!
GJ enjoyed Olive—and vice versa!
I have so much to do today…
to prepare for our houseful of guests—but as you can see I’m off to a raring start.
Roberts Road
So this was what it looked like when we left this morning. Pretty…but still yuck. LOL
Tom wanted to leave early so I told him to wake me up. I expected 6am—and when he did it felt like 6. It was 8. So we didn’t leave until 9. Early. Haha. His new early is 9am. I like that.
Gramma and Katie cuddles
Thanksgiving 2021
All of the googly eyes make this delicious appetizer tablescape perfect.
Cousins!
And a throwback:
You know it’s a successful road trip when…
Late night food delivery!
Friendship means Thanksgiving dinner plate leftovers delivery at 10:30pm because we had deep dish pizza today. (And we had had a game night with a bunch of us!)
Thanksgiving Zoom!
We just finished a 2 1/2 hour Zoomfest with the whole Schwalmlette and Schmittlette family! We visited and played a few trivia games
…and took our family photo.
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…?!
Pre-Thanksgiving Zoom with friends
When you’re on a cheese party zoom call in the kitchen you have to make do.
Playing some new online collaborative games. Quiplash is my favorite!
Military families and Thanksgiving
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.
Today’s cooking project!
I think my friends thought I was crazy asking to bring the turkey carcass home (they aren’t cooks)…but I had to make stock! I am my mother’s daughter!!
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.
I could get used to this new Thanksgiving tradition!
We had dinner at a friend’s house (they invited anyone who didn’t have anywhere to go—and that’s us!) and then came home for a family cuddle and movie…complete with fire in the fireplace! 🦃👨👩👧👦🐶🐈📺🔥
Helping Gramma make soup!
Thanksgiving 2017
Our turkey chef tonight! #infraredfryer #17pounds #50degreesinmichigan #thanksgiving
I thoroughly enjoyed drinking my first wine in two weeks tonight with Dee (Rob’s girlfriend)… But it gave me a headache. Maybe we should have stopped after the first bottle! 😂
And all the leftovers!!
Potato Helper
Gramma wanted Katie to check with me if we had enough potatoes for our Thanksgiving Dinner. I said no. I mean really, you can never have too many mashed potatoes.
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.)
My very first use of a selfie stick!
Never again.
Going out on Black Friday? Never again.
NEVER AGAIN.
NEVER NEVER NEVER AGAIN.
I forgot how insanely awful it is. We tried to go to a movie and couldn’t even get IN the parking lot so we just came home. And then I got what I needed… :p
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. 🙂