Thanksgiving

So, I got nominated to host Thanksgiving for my family this year. Not a big deal, I love having my family over, we always have such a great time together. I hosted Christmas last year and it went great. I was nervous over just one little thing.....I've never made a turkey before! EEEK!

I started making my preparations at the beginning of October, I figured one can never be too prepared, especially when hosting Thanksgiving for 20! I made my menu and asked that everyone bring something to share. I have one sister that makes the BEST salads ever and another sister that is known as the "Potato Queen". I wasn't about to mess with those dishes! I bought a practice turkey and cooked it a few weeks ago. It turned out okay...just a bit dry. I decided to make a few changes for my Thanksgiving Turkey. I went with the brined turkey. I got the recipe off of Food Network's "Good Eats". Let me tell you, the turkey was the BOMB! Super moist and the skin was nice and golden brown. DELISH! Some of the other dishes included my famous sweet potato casserole, sweet corn casserole, spicy cornbread stuffing, rolls, green beans, swedish meatballs, deviled eggs, chips, dip, a veggie tray, cranberry sauce and of course, desert! Pumpkin pie, German Chocolate Cake and my dad's homemade cheesecake (which, in my opinion, is WAY better than the cheesecake factory!) We were all stuffed!

After dinner, the girls hung out with the girls, the guys with the guys and the kids with the kids. This is typically how it goes in my family. The guys drank beer, watched football and sat outside by the firepit. The girls looked at the Black Friday ads, drank wine and chatted. The kids were upstairs, downstairs, at the park, riding bikes up and down the street, out in the yard playing football, in other words, EVERYWHERE and keeping very busy. My nieces even made up a dance and performed for the adults. It was very cute.

We have a fun family tradition that started just last year. We played LCR (Left, Center, Right). It's a dice game where everyone starts with $3. You roll 3 dice that are marked with either an L, R, C or a dot. If you roll a dot, you keep your money, you roll an L, you pass a $1 to the left, roll an R and pass to the right and if you roll a C you put the $1 in the center. Last person with $1 at the end, wins the entire pot. We had 20 people...even the kids played (Yes, my kids are gambling, LOL!) so we had $60 in the pot. We sat at my big long table, the game lasted quite a while but in the end, CONNOR won the giant stack of $1's. He was beyond excited and I was so happy for him. Guess I will be taking him shopping soon!

I was so relieved that Thanksgiving was a success. The holidays are really about spending time with family. I'm truly blessed and I feel so lucky to have so many people in my life to love.