Turkey Day

This year Thanksgiving was brought to a whole new level for me.  I have always loved Turkey Day because it is about that time of the year when school is getting tough, you need a break, you start to miss your family, a few days off for some sleep is necessary, and your stomach starts to growl for a good feast.  Our Thanksgivings are always fun filled days with the family too! Checking out the cars, playing Crockett, block throwing, dress up games, manners lessons, story time, questions, dish washing party time, eating (of course), testing/teasing the new family members or the soon to be new family members, and so much more.  Basically we have awesome family get togethers!

When i was in Italy, Giovanna made a wonderful Thanksgiving, or 'Ringraciamente,' feast for Lauren and I.  With her olive oil covered potatoes, stuffed tomatoes, fresh bread, pasta, and chunks of Turkey (also covered in olive oil) spread out on the dinner table, we tried teaching the Leocata family what Thanksgiving meant to Americans.  We appreciated their interest in an American tradition and wonderful attempt to re-create a very important family day in our lives.

This year Thanksgiving was--like most years--all about the people sitting at the dinner table, but it was also about creating Thanksgiving day. It was about how we all came together and did our individual part to create a wonderful community feast.  It started with an email i sent out asking everyone to start thinking about what dish they were going to make.  We were missed Becca and Lily who had gone home to be with their families this week.  But with next door there were 9 of us total.  Each of us chose our favorite family dish to make, which clearly made our feast the best because it was made up of the 'best' family recipes.  The Lantern Light nuns gave us one of the donated turkeys.  It was a 13lb turkey that they handed Anne and I at the end of the day on Monday.  We had ridden our bikes to work that morning which meant the turkey was coming home in my bike basket.  It threw off my balence a little at first but sure did make Anne and i laugh the whole way home.  Have you ever met someone who brought home their Thanksgiving turkey in a bike basket?! Well now you have, haha. Anyways we were pretty proud to get it home :)

Ana and Ed took on the turkey preparations and cooking.  Stephanie made 2 different types of sweet potatoes.  I made the families green bean salad.  Although there was some discussion of making a green bean casserole at first... Luckily i was able to talk them out of that and convince everyone that the green bean salad would be better. Lauren made a green salad and a fruit salad.  Cate made backed brocolli (with garlic and olive oil, can't go wrong).  Anne made backed Bree for an appraiser along side of Stephanies spinach dip (which came from my little black recipe book!).  Caitlin made mashed potatoes with almost as much garlic and cream as Dad's potatoes.  Cara made her families stuffing recipe, the ingredients of which were generously donated by her family.  For desert Ana made pumpkin pie and apple crisp.  I made a chocolate chip pie (can't have a good meal without chocolate right).  And to drink we had about 7 bottles of wine that were passed around the table all night.  It was a feast!

It was also the first time some people had been away from home for Thanksgiving while others (like me) it was their first friend filled Thanksgiving. By that i mean no one at our table was related.  We all consider ourselves a family now and have a wonderful community bond but it was different than having Thanksgiving dinner with family members.  We all worked so hard to save the money we needed to eat what we wanted to eat, then take the time and make each dish (there was even an oven schedule made so that everything could be cooked), and finally coming together to enjoy our accomplishments.  It was very rewarding :)

We obviously had lots to talk about at the table but right before we sat down i got the text from Jenny asking me the family question.  "What was the best/most memorable memory from a teacher?" Everyone loved the idea of a question at dinner so that is how all of the conversation started.  We played some games after and stayed up pretty late.  A few people went out and others stayed in to watch a movie.  Over all it was a very successful and fun Thanksgiving!

I hope each of you had an amazing Turkey Day as well :D

P.S. Thanks you to my family for the wonderful phone call i recieved on Thanksgiving! It brought tears to my eyes to hear the dinner prayers and everyones voices together singing at the end.  Thank you :)