Thanksgiving

Our family came to visit for Thanksgiving. It was our first time hosting MTH's parents. With our bigger house, we were able to have my parents, my sister and MTH's sister stay at our place. His parents stayed in hotel. We probably could have squeezed them in too but it was helpful that they stayed at the hotel.

My parents got in on Tuesday evening so that my Mom could help me with the grocery shopping on Wednesday morning. MTH's parents got in on Wednesday morning. We had a nice group lunch and then my Mom, MTH's mom and I worked on as much preparation as possible. Our goal was to have as little to do on Thanksgiving as possible. There are no pictures from that day. My Mom made some awesome homemade bread and MTH's Mom made some great homemade pie crusts for the pumpkin pie, pecan pie and the traditional day after Thanksgiving Day turkey pot pie. For dinner that night, I made personal pan pizzas. Anyone can do this trick. You go to your favorite local pizza place and buy the pizza dough there. My Mom brought me a pizza stone so I used that in the oven instead of grilling the dough as I usually do. The pizza stone worked a lot better because the oven's heat is much more even than our grill. Everyone loved the dinner and it was easy for me. My sister made peartini's for all. It's going to be one of our signature drinks at the Christmas party next weekend. By that time, everybody was tired so we didn't play any of the games we had planned.

On Thursday, MTH and I ran a hilly 10k starting at 9am (pictures to come later). Instead of trying to have a breakfast before the race, we decided to have brunch around 11am and not worry about lunch. For those that got hungry prior to the brunch, we had fruit and bagels available. The brunch menu was Georgia stone ground grits (cheese optional), eggs made to order (cheese optional), bagels, pork sausage from the butcher, biscuits and fruit.

Then, we cooked for the rest of the afternoon. I guess we wouldn't have been able to finish on Thanksgiving if we hadn't done any preparation! My sister made stuffed butternut squash.





MTH carved the turkey with our new electric carving knife.





My sister folded the fabric napkins for a special touch.







That night, we played Apples to Apples. It's a great game for a disparate group of people. There's no board or die involved - just some cards.

I didn't mention this fact before but Thanksgiving Day was my Mom's birthday. So, on Friday, we headed to The Jefferson Hotel in downtown Richmond for afternoon tea. It was a nice afternoon. Unfortunately, MTH's Mom and Dad left earlier that afternoon so only my sister, my Mom and Molly were able to go.







Note that the weather was cold enough for my green jacket!

We spent the rest of Friday starting to decorate for Christmas and making a turkey pot pie. On Saturday, we shopped for more decorations. Then, we went out for dinner - no more cooking!!