Giving Thanks

Whew! Ok. All the celebrating is done. I napped. I got the leftovers into the designated refrigeration units. There are still dishes to be done, but I have higher priorities – namely, getting the photos I took processed and ready to blog, and then blogging them — but after processing, I looked at my pitiful crap-heap of a desk and couldn’t function for one more millisecond without grabbing a string of Lysol wipes and scrubbing everything down, which meant hunting down a box to put all the millions of I-Love-You-Mom drawings from Ruben and pieces of mail that need to be dealt with eventually and pieces of mail that I “dealt with” by reading them but then chucked them under something because I was suddenly assailed by fifty questions at once before I could figure out what to do with the envelopes and never got back to them for three months and — NOW, having cleaned my desk a bit, I can talk about how wonderful today was.

Family. Never, ever, take your family for granted. For all these gifts, “Let us give thanks to the Lord!”

For love, appreciation and support within our family
For more food than we can eat in one sitting
For shelter and clothing, at a time when so many live precariously on the streets
For grown children who walk the straight and narrow path
For grown children who are taking a circuitous route
For children fighting the hardest mental health battles
For LGBTQ family who are loved beyond all telling
For bio-families with whom we share such deep love for our adopted kiddos
For children who help their handicapped mom with house cleaning and cooking tasks
For a husband who works tirelessly to provide for and support the many physical, spiritual, educational, and emotional needs of his wife and family
For a church family who loves, supports, and prays for us
For holy priests who bring us closer to Christ
For the Godly heritage passed on to us from both our parents
For all those who have passed into eternal life

I could keep on with that bullet list, and I will as I continue on through the rest of this Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

With most of the prep work done last night, the morning was free to do an early run to the grocery store with Natalie and Alyssa. We got there around 8:15 and it was madness already! My girls are warriors, though, and braved the rushing crowds (Natalie still wearing her boot on her broken foot!) to fetch the last few necessities for our day.

Back home again, I peeled the extra potatoes we had just gotten (because I couldn’t imagine 15 lbs being enough so I bought 10 more), cut them all and had the kids put them on to boil. I fit what should have had 4 pots into 2, and that’s never the right move, but it’s what I have so it’s what I did. They got cooked, aright? (Well, maybe more like emulsified… I do get distracted… NONEtheless, they turned out fabulously by the time Laurent was done with them.)

And speaking of, Laurent arrived with Ruben and Ellie not long after Paul left to go to the east valley to pick up Ana, his mom and Jacob, who lives about 1 mile from her place. Laurent had the kids overnight at her place and then took them with her to sit in the balcony with her while she sang the Thanksgiving Day mass at the basilica. She got right to work sorting out everything that still needed doing. Next to arrive was Geneva, followed closely by Jeff and then Paul et al. Though I had “planned” to sit down around 1pm, “plans” are always tentative on Thanksgiving day. We eat whenever it’s all ready, is what it is. And while it might have been a little later than desired, and we didn’t do the vast array of hors d’oeuvres we have had in the past, the hungriest of tummies were kept happy with dipping into the olive trays at will, until finally we gathered to give Thanks for our blessings and begin the feasting.

Our dual celebration this year included Natalie’s birthday, which falls tomorrow. She has long been dissatisfied with having to put up with Thanksgiving food on her birthday because it always falls in the same week, if not the same day. She was the driving force behind abandoning the turkey in favor of beef, and I don’t think anyone was sorry about the change in menu! We’ll probably try something similar next year (although not Brisket – super tasty, but wayyyyy too fatty!).

Our celebratory crew today was cozy – fourteen around our table and sprawled across the living room couches. With a menu that included Beef Brisket and Ham, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, Dressing, Green Bean Casserole & Wild Rice (Grandma), Macaroni and Cheese (Geneva), Asian Salad & Elote (Laurent), Baby Dills and Kosher Spears, Dave’s Spicy Pickle Chips, Banana Peppers, Black Olives, Spanish Olives, Cranberry Jelly, Pumpkin and Apple Pies (thanks to Jeanne Behrendt!), Cheesecake (Jacob), Chocolate Flan (Rebecca), Marble Birthday Cake with Blue Buttercream Frosting, Ice Cream & Reddi-Wip, and N/A Mimosas and Red Wine to drink — yah, we were full.

Here are pics o’ the day!