The Ginormous Turkey

The story of this Thanksgiving starts with a plan to travel for the holidays. Somewhere along the way, I realized that traveling for Thanksgiving (which I have avoided like the plague for 12 years of living in Boston), being 32 weeks pregnant and having a 2 year old to contend with was not such a hot idea. The plans I'd made with my brothers and parents to see each other for the holiday season got cancelled and instead I begged my parents to come up to see me. They agreed! Yay! Also, my mother-in-law, after seeing our gorgeously large new dining room, graciously passed the Thanksgiving hosting to us. Yay.....well except for one thing, I have no idea how to do Thanksgiving!

My normal Thanksgiving, I show up at some one's house, maybe with a dish that I've made, eat and leave. This hosting thing was a whole different ball game. Not only did we have tons more responsibility then usual, but I had the anxiety of finally being a grown up. Forget buying property, getting married and having kids....the true mark of crossing over to adulthood is hosting a major family holiday!

The next installment of this Thanksgiving story is about the turkey. Now, I'm not sure where the miscommunication was, but I had been told that my in-laws were taking care of all things turkey - purchase, cooking and carving. A couple of weeks before the big day, I found out this was not the case so we were left to find a pretty big turkey (to feed 20 people) with not a lot of time. I happened to find this out before a friend, who had missed the house warming party, came over for a visit. She had just returned from a year's sabbatical going to a farm school in western Mass. That farm was selling their turkey's for the holidays so she gave us a number to call. We called, we reserved on of their "bigger" turkey's that would be 20-25 pounds (the guys had all been shipped off for processing so they didn't know the exact weights).

The plan was then to go pick it up as a family and make it a fun event by touring the farm. Once we found out the farm was pretty much void of animals or growing things, that plan didn't sound so fun. So, I took an afternoon off, ran errands with Dylan while Mike made the 3 hour (!) round trip. When he returned with the bird, he said they told him those that weren't marked were more than 30 pounds....guess whose bird wasn't marked? Dying of curiosity, we headed upstairs to lay the bird on our currently under utilized scale (yeah, I'm not stepping on that thing often these days).

Do you see that? 34 1/2 pounds!!!

That farm raised turkey must have been one fat, happy guy. Biggest darned thing I'd ever seen! Well, that was Monday and it was frozen so the thawing had to start immediately. It found it's home for the next couple of days in the guest bedroom bathtub - just the welcome that I'm sure my parents were hoping for when they arrived the next day!

Fast forward a couple of days, after our trip to the Enchanted Village, and Mike and my parents were hard at work on meal prep while I played with Dylan and tried not to over extend myself. Those 3 prepped the turkey for cooking, wrapped it for safety and stuck it in the cool garage overnight (that thing was definitely not fitting in the refrigerator!). Mike woke bright and early - 5:40 am to be exact - to preheat the oven and get that bird cooking by 6am. That's a lot of pounds of turkey that need to be cooked through and that takes many, many hours.

Around 7, Dylan and I got up, showered and started with Mike and my parents on getting the house ready for the festivities. I stayed extremely busy finding linens, directing furniture re-arrangements, setting the table, cleaning for company and who knows what else. But, I was crazy busy all that day and yet, I didn't cook a thing! Mike and my parents were the ones handling making all the tasty food we were making for the day. We made a lot and folks were bringing a lot - there was A LOT of food ready to be eaten by the time folks arrived around 2.

Mike, Betsy (mother-in-law), Dad, Tom (father-in-law) and Aunt Kathy Doing Prep

Somewhere between 2:30 and 3 when our online research told us the bird should be ready it was! And it looked mighty pretty.

Then we just had to wait for the gravy to get prepared and it would be time to dig in!

Adults Waiting For Dinner

How the Kids Spent Their Time Waiting

We started the feast around 3:30 and man was it a feast! We all stuffed ourselves silly and yet it looked like we barely put a dent in all of that food. No one, and I mean no one, could even think about dessert at that point.

The Table is Set!

5 of 6 Kiddos Ready to Eat

One Side of the Table

And the Other

Then came the long clean up effort. With so many leftovers, it was quite a chore to get everything divvied up and packed away. A few folks took brave turns at the sink rinsing off and quickly moving left to right to get both of our dishwashers loaded up. Other than loading just a few things in the dishwasher, I didn't do any cleaning. Never fear dear friends, I was not at all idle. Being the homeowner and hostess, I was staying quite busy directing all the madness. I tell ya though, our family can really clean up a storm. Almost every single dish was taken care of within the hour after we finished eating. With all that activity, a few of us even worked off enough food to make room for a little dessert.

Check Out The Dessert Spread!

After dessert and another round of clean up, food coma was deeply setting in and it was time to call it a day. But, not before trying to get a group picture. With 2 cameras and 2 seasoned self timer photographers, it should not have been a difficult task. However, technology was a little much for my Mom and Mike after our long day so it took some fumbling. Finally, though, we were able to get some group shops. And, if we take bits and pieces from each one, we'd have a pretty good group photo of everyone (without odd expressions).

Still Trying to Figure Out The Self Timer Function

Some Good Smiles, Some Goofy Faces
Top Row - Dad, Tom, Jim, Joe, Jamon
Middle Row - Mom, Betsy, Kathy, Kristina, Maureen, Gretchen
Bottom Row (Kids) - Corwin, Emily, Patrick, Jacob, Derek
Couch Level - Mike, Me and Dylan

Some Other Good Smiles and Some Other Goofy Faces

Mostly Nice Smiles (Except for Patrick)

Are we done yet? Totally giving up and going kooky. 

It was definitely a great day and a great learning experience for us. As we're now the designated Thanksgiving house, we know that there a few things we need to get to improve upon the experience for all. Number one on that list is coffee for the coffee drinkers. Mike and I don't ever partake in a cuppa joe so we didn't even think about it but there were a few disappointed folks that didn't get their favorite post dinner treat. Also, we need more serving dishes. I thought we had a lot but with that much food, what we had did not cover all the bases.

But I did plan fun kid activities, including sticker fun.

It was a great day that was really exhausting. I love hosting but being on my feet and crazy busy all day took its toll and I desperately needed a day to recuperate. Unfortunately, I didn't get that as I had to work the following day. Nor did I get it the next few days when my parents were itching to help us get some projects done around the house. Their plane took off back to Texas this morning. And, while I'm going to miss them terribly and really don't want them to leave after what felt like a quick trip (as it always does), I'm also a bit relieved that I get to curl up on the couch tonight, veg out with some tv and then have an early bedtime!