Thanksgiving 2012

The years and holidays can start to blur together over time, but I’m sure Thanksgiving 2012 will stand out in our minds because it was the year of The Crash. In the week leading up to Thanksgiving, there was a flurry of emails between me and the other siblings while we divvied up the dishes and duties that Mom and Dad usually take care of.

Kelly, Heather and I went down to Mom and Dad’s on Monday so we could get the house ready. We did all the cleaning and set the tables with Mom and Dad’s best dishes and silverware. Mom spent most of the time trying to get comfortable. She got up several times and hobbled into the kitchen and also tried out a different chair for the first time since she got home from the hospital. After lunch, I started a double batch of chocolate chip cookies, since Dad had almost finished off the batch that he had in the freezer. Yes, this is a funny detail about the day of the accident I hadn’t heard of yet. Apparently, Dad had baked chocolate chip cookies the night before the accident. The next evening at the hospital, he gave Heather a list of things to do back at the house. One of the things he mentioned was the chocolate chip cookies – he wanted her to make sure she put those in the freezer. :-D  Yep, that’s my Dad; never waste dessert! We finished up around 3:00 and spent the next hour or so chatting.

Mick offered to take on the turkey roasting duties and Heather made Mom’s traditional stuffing. All of us girls made more pies than we usually do. I made 2 pecan and my first ever pumpkin pie. Mick decided to grill one of the turkeys and we roasted the other one in the oven. There’s nothing like the smell of roasted turkey to make the house feel like Thanksgiving!

Meanwhile, the girls helped gather up all the pilgrim costume pieces we could find and we went over the play. Who would’ve thought when Kelly wrote that play out 10 years ago that we would still be doing it all these years later! 

We’ve had an unusually warm November, and Thanksgiving day was sunny and in the mid-60s. After we ate the meal, Mick, Glenn, Dad, Steve, Chuck and Ron took 10 of the kids over to neighbor Dave Higgins’ place to do some skeet shooting. Dad wasn’t going to go at first because he felt like he should be there for Mom, but we convinced him to go with the others. Since we stayed at the house, I sent our camera and camcorder with the girls and they ended up getting quite a good bit of footage of the adventure.

 

Later, we pitted the guys against the girls for a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit. Let’s see: I learned that Denver backed out of hosting the Winter Olympics in 1976, roller derby was invented in the 1920s and 30s, the first English play written for children was “Peter Pan” and the word “feedback” is the smallest English word you can form with the letters A, B, C, D, E, and F! Unfortunately, because it was getting late, we had to stop before the game was over, so we weren’t able to determine a winner, but let’s just say that after a shaky start, the ladies came roaring back!  ;-)

 

We finished up the evening with an impromptu mini piano concert by Chuck, who didn’t bring his guitar again because he “doesn’t have enough time to practice.” Harumph!

The day after Thanksgiving, I was looking through the pictures and video – most of which the girls got – and decided to make a movie. It ended up being more elaborate than I had in mind at first, but we’re happy with the finished product: it gives a good overview of what a wonderful day it was!