My mom came into town the day before Thanksgiving. Chloe and I picked her up from the airport and gave her the tour of the new house. Thursday morning, we woke up and had our traditional Thanksgiving breakfast: Pillsbury Orange Rolls and coffee. We perused the sale fliers and Walter started prepping the turkey around 9am. We cleaned up breakfast, made a few snack trays, and stuffed twenty pounds of turkey into one of the ovens. I made two loaves of cornbread, a huge sweet potato caserole with marshmallows on top, oh yeah!! Walter made his from-scratch cranberry sauce. Walter and I commented frequently throughout the day about how much we love the new house. The whole reason we built the house was centered around the idea of Thanksgiving. We wanted to be able to entertain larger groups of people comfortably. He and I worked around each other in the kitchen and it seemed like perfectly choreographed waltz. We were hardly in each others way. I had my workspace, he had his, and once in a while, we'd cross paths enroute to the sink. We never could have pulled that off in the other house. We would have been all up in each other's buisness and stressed each other out.
The Hamby families arrived just after 2pm and brought a pile of desserts: buckeyes, apple cake, and coconut brownies. The Hambys Senior brought corn caserole and cranberry salad. They also brought Phil's Aunt and new Uncle who was one of the designers for the International Space Station. (I don't know why I was surprised when he was quick to notice my signed copy of Buzz Aldrin's book in our office.) A little bit later, Walter's mom came down with her stuffing, the green bean caserole, and [insert angel choir] mashed potatoes and gravy! She makes the best mashed potatoes.
One thing that made this year special was the next set of guests to arrive. I invited some of the interns I work with who are from The Netherlands. Since they don't celebrate pilgrims, indians, and God's providence in the New World, I figured that they'd never have a more American experience unless they came at 4th of July. There were four of them. Our guest list was already pretty large, so when I first posed the crazy idea to Walter, I told him that I was a little worried that I couldn't pull it off. I'd be too busy cooking or chasing kids that I was afraid that I couldn't work the crowd like a good hostess. I said, "I'm afraid it might be too much for me to control." And he reminded me, "Dear, I think it's already grown beyond our control. A few more can't make it any bigger." I'm glad he reassured me because having the interns was awesome.
We opened up the kitchen table and pulled it into the dining room, so we had two full-sized tables and I was worried that it would end up being one table of interns and one table of family and it would end up being segregated and no fun. After we prayed for our meal, I encouraged everyone to spread out and mingle. I didn't think to get a photo until all the food was cleared away, but I had sixteen adults and five kids at our table(s).
After dessert, Walter broke out the poker set and got schooled, European-style, in the game. The Hambys senior cleared out and I got my kids bathed and ready for bed. The guys finished up their game and called their DD to drive them home. (In Dutch, the acronym equivalent to designated driver is BOB. So the DD is called the BOB.)
The next morning, my mom went out with Walter's mom before any of us were up. They hit the early-bird Black Friday sales at the mall. Me? I went shopping alright. In my pajamas. Online. I learned a few years ago, that standing in line for a good deal is just not my thing. I completed almost my entire list before 8am without leaving the house. There was one item at Toys R Us that was sold out online, so I put on my sneakers, took a deep breath, and actually went to the store. It wasn't bad at all! They opened at midnight this year, so all the crazies had already come and gone and they'd already restocked the shelves before I got there. Saaawweeet! My mom met up with me there and we moseyed over to Kohls to see how bad the lines were there. Not bad either. We actually shopped around (rather than my grab-and-dash for the checkout line strategy).
When I got home, the kitchen was totally clean from our explosion of Thanksgiving mess. Walter had it all cleaned up. And he put up the Christmas tree, ready for us to decorate that night. After a little snooze, I took down our fall decor and Walter replaced it with garland and lights.
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