Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. What is better than a day dedicated to eating food? And to me nothing is better than pumpkin pie. It is my absolute favorite, I feel like I wait all year to get some pumpkin pie. I don't know if I ever ate pecan pie before I met Mr. W but it is his favorite for the holiday. So for the last few years I have been making one of each for us for the holiday.
After Mr. W and I started living in sin we took over hosting Thanksgiving for my grandma; she was ready to retire from big family dinners. Since Mr. W loves to cook fancy it works out really well for us because we can happily split up the work. The first couple years he was very ambitious and made turducken. In recent years he has become a devotee of the brine then barbeque method. That is what he did this year. The bird ends up looking really dark, but she's totally moist inside.
I can do pies and soups ahead of time to leave him mostly to himself the day of Thanksgiving so that I can set the table. I have always loved doing this; I'd set the table for my mom when I was growing up. I have been known to buy books about napkin folding, much to the enjoyment of my friends. What is better mocking material than nerdy napkin books?
Because we host around 15 people we have to set up an auxilary table in the entry because we don't have the space for everyone in our bungalow dining room.
I've been trying to perfect the layout over the last few years. Two tables is great because I can use two sets of my china.
We had two little ones this year so my cousin and I had a lot for which to be thankful. Next year the boys will have even more fun with each other. Since there are too many of us to easily fit around the table for cards, we are a big card playing family, we have played Pit the last two years after dinner to burn off turkey before we go back for pie. Pit is a lot of fun , if only our living room was a little bit bigger we'd have more room to elbow around for our stock trading!
Happy Thanksgiving!