Thanksgiving

Amy managed to snag a ride home with a friend from school on Wednesday. Mike is taking her back up north this morning, so we were able to see her for 5+ days! It was great having her around. She was able to get quite a bit of homework done and a couple of papers written over the weekend. I'm not sure if we'll see her again until the Christmas break begins. She's supposed to tutor in town on Friday, but needs to finalize the tutoring session.

My mom was able to spend Thanksgiving day with us. We eat Thanksgiving dinner around noon, which drives my mom crazy. I always serve an appetizer about 30 minutes before dinner. This years appetizer was a cheese ball and Ritz pretzel-crackers. I've never made a cheese ball. Everyone enjoyed it and wants me to make another one around Christmas. Our Thanksgiving dinner menu consisted of turkey, dressing, two types of cranberry sauce, broccoli, mashed potatoes, a vegetable tray, dinner rolls, gravy, and Glenda's gelatin salad. I normally make Waldorf salad, but the kids ate too many of my "saved for Thanksgiving" apples and it was either apple pie or Waldorf salad. It's not a traditional Thanksgiving feast, but my family doesn't like yams or sweet potatoes. Dessert was pumpkin pie or apple pie with whipped cream.

In the afternoon we all sat around and played pinochle for several hours. I remember watching the grown-ups play pinochle at family gatherings when I was growing up. After several families left, my grandfather invited the older children to step into the game. My grandfather was an amazing player and a very patient teacher. It's fun to see the tradition continuing with my children learning the game from their grandmother.

We normally walk through the Christmas lights downtown in the evening, but ended up skipping that tradition this year. It was pouring rain and no one wanted to get soaked.

Paige, Allie, Joe, Madelyn and I set up the living room Christmas tree on Friday. Steve, Katie and Amy tumbled out of bed around 10:00 and were surprised to see the tree decorated already. We are planning on putting up two trees this year. I want to sort out all of the ornaments and lights before packing them up and moving them to the other house.