Thanksgiving Dinner, 2009
Today, Debbie and I purchased a 20-pound honeysuckle turkey on our grocery shopping trip. So it seemed appropriate to declare this day the official start of the Thanksgiving Dinner, 2009 effort. Mom and I are hosting the affair here at 2:00 PM on Thanksgiving day (November 26th, 2009).
The Guest List
The guest list follows:
- [Emmy]
- Sister Mary Ann, her husband, and their three daughters
- Sister Mary Ann’s sister-in-law, [Ethel] and her son
Ten people total.
The Menu
Items on the menu include:
- Vegetable tray
- Cranberry sauce
- Turkey (of course)
- Green bean casserole — [Ethel] is bringing this
- Mashed potatoes with gravy
- Baked yams with optional marshmallow topping
- Creamed cauliflower
- Stuffing (filling) both wet and dry
- Corn
- Assorted pies, ice cream, and whipped cream for dessert
The rest of my siblings will cook dinner at their own houses but will come here later in the day for dessert.
And so, the preparations begin. Look in the comments for this post to track our progress.
November 16th, 2009 at 7:07 am
09:10 AM: Sister Mary Ann is coming over in a half-hour to help us organize for this dinner.
12:00 PM: Mary Ann arrived on schedule, and so far, we’ve accomplished the following:
• hauled the big table and ten chairs down from the attic,
• cleaned up the table,
• brought the 16-quart roaster up from the basement,
• verified that we have enough glasses, plates, and bowls for the guests,
• put a load of the clear, glass dessert plates in the dishwasher,
• vacuumed the living room, my stairs, and the den,
• pulled out the refrigerator and cleaned behind it; lots of old cat food and fur back there,
• took all the books off of Mom’s living room book shelf and dusted the shelf. Mom is going through them to see what she wants to keep or discard.
• ran a second load of china and silverware we’ll be using for the dinner through the dishwasher,
• Picked up a load of items for the dinner on today’s shopping trip,
• wiped out some of the shelves in the cupboards above and to the right of the sink,
• cleaned all the cups and china in those cabinets,
02:30 PM: Just got back from the first Thanksgiving shopping trip; we’ll probably make two or three more before the big day arrives.
November 18th, 2009 at 10:43 am
11:00 AM: Mom finished polishing the sliver.
November 22nd, 2009 at 8:49 am
10:50 AM: Removed the turkey from the freezer, to the refrigerator. This gives it four days to thaw; should be plenty of time.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:29 am
10:27 AM: The turkey shows little sign of thawing in the refrigerator. So I removed it to the counter and threw a towel over it. This should shorten the defrost time considerably; a reassuring phenomenon since Thanksgiving is now less than two days away.
02:00 PM: A neighbor picked up two canisters of pickled eggs and two cans of beets for Mom, for this effort. Things are really coming together. It pays to start the preparations early.
November 25th, 2009 at 9:56 am
11:55 AM: Sister Mary Ann arrived a bit ago, and we discovered that we only have one or two useable sauce pans. So, I put them on the list for the next big shopping trip. We do have enough pots for tomorrow however, and she’ll bring some up from her house as needed. So we’re covered insofar as the cooking and eating utensils go.
12:00 PM: Mary Ann left a box of wine glasses for sister Jojo to retrieve, on the south porch swing.
12:05 PM: Mom prepared the most as well as the dry filling.
12:15 PM: Moved all soda to the south porch, to make room in the refrigerator for more food. We’ll just have to watch that the temperature does not fall to below freezing tonight. Otherwise, we’ll experience a cola-brown, explosive mess.
01:00 We rounded up al the pots and pans we’ll need for cooking the food tomorrow, Mom fried up the onions and celery to put in the filling, and we came up with yet another grocery list for the meal tomorrow. Seems like I go shopping every day.
I moved the garland out to the east porch until after we conclude this affair, probably on black Friday. Then, I’ll put it up outside, per the Christmas lighting, 2009 project.
01:15 PM: Mary Ann fetched the three pies we’d ordered a couple weeks ago from the restaurant down the road.
01:45 PM: We went to Martin’s grocery store on a little shopping trip to buy the last-minute essentials.
01:50 PM: Mom will clean the turkey tonight, which, by the way, is thawing nicely.
02:50 PM: Mom is cleaning the turkey right now.
05:15 PM: Mom’s got the turkey ready for roasting tomorrow morning, and she just prepared a pot of orange Jello with cream cheese, which she had me put out on the porch.
07:30 PM: I think I smell cauliflower cooking downstairs; another dish that Mom loves making for the holidays. She’s preparing three heads this time.
10:30 PM: The cauliflower and broccoli dish is ready for heating tomorrow. The meal is really starting to come together nicely.
November 26th, 2009 at 5:33 am
07:10 AM: We put the turkey in just now; the roaster set to 325 degrees. This twenty-pound bird should take 4-1/4 to 4-3/4 hours to completely cook. So barring any unforeseen circumstances, it will be done in plenty of time to make our planned 2:00 PM dinner time.
09:30 AM: Sister Jojo and her daughter stopped by, to run the vacuum cleaner for Mom, and to do a quick run to the grocery store as well.
10:15 AM: The turkey is smelling’ mighty good.
12:00 PM: Sister Mary Ann and her family just arrived.
12:30 PM: The dry filling is baking, Mary Ann and Tom are making the pineapple soufflé, and Mom has a ham in the oven, in addition to the turkey.
12:45 PM: Tensions rose a little when we learned that Mom just bought a ham. I’m not crazy about ham for Thanksgiving and from the sounds of it, sister Mary Ann thought it a frivolous purchase as well. Plus, making the ham took up valuable space in the oven that we’d not counted on during the planning of this meal. So, Mary Ann and Mom exchanged a look or two. But they worked it out and things are humming along harmoniously once more. Good thing we did the pre planning however, because the stress levels today have been markedly lower than in past years. Yes, planning is good.
01:00 PM: The cauliflower and broccoli are done and waiting in a crock pot on the serving table.
01:30 PM: The turkey is done, right on schedule; the little done-indicator just popped up. Again, since we cooked the bird in a roaster, we’re not seeing much browning. We expected this however; it’s no problem.
01:35 PM: The first floor has gotten quite warm with all the people running around and the cooking and baking going on. So I’ve turned off all heat, opened the south and west doors, and activated the exhaust fan in the attic, in an attempt to generate some cool air flow down there.
01:50 PM: Tom and Mom are carving the turkey now.
02:05 PM: Jane’s green bean casserole just finished heating along with the moist filling. I’ve moved these to the serving table. We’re a little behind schedule, but no one’s complaining. Everything smells so good here.
02:15 PM: The pickled, hard-boiled eggs, beets, celery with peanut butter and cream cheese, and the pineapple soufflé have been moved to the serving table. We’re getting very close to dinner time.
02:20 PM: We’ve begun serving the food. Pretty good. We’re only twenty minutes behind schedule. The turkey is not quite carved yet, and the ham still has a few more minutes to bake. Nonetheless, all is proceeding nicely.
02:25 PM: We’re still waiting on the gravy to be done. Note for next year: allow more time before putting the food out, for the gravy preparations.
02:35 PM: The gravy is ready. Brother-in-law Tom said grace, then we all dug in. Yum!
03:05 PM: People have finished eating. Yum. I enjoyed one big plate of everything, and I am stuffed!
Now, we’re just sitting around, gabbing. Here, shortly, we’ll remove the big table back to the attic, to make some open space in the living room for when people have dessert after while.
04:05 PM: Cleanup from dinner is under way. We’ll already have lots of green bean casserole left-overs to eat the next few days. Our cups definitely runneth over today, and I’m intensely thankful for our good fortune.
04:45 PM: Cleanup from dinner: Done. Now, it’s map time.
05:40 PM: Garrett arrived, the first of the crowd that will be joining us for dessert at 6:00 PM.
05:45 PM: Sister Jojo and her family just arrived.
06:15 PM: Sister Christine just arrived with her husband, Richard. People are enjoying pumpkin and peach pies now.
07:40 PM: People have finished eating dessert and everyone’s just hanging around the living and sitting rooms, chatting; a great evening, for sure.
08:50 PM: The last of the guests (sister Jojo and her daughter) just left. We received voluminous compliments on the meal; everyone enjoyed themselves very much, they said. So, this concludes this event. Next event: our Christmas Eve, 2009 party.
November 27th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
10:02 PM: We enjoyed our second meal of left-overs from this effort tonight. Mom heated them up for us all. There was turkey, corn, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, orange cream cheese jello, pie, and diet caffeine-free Pepsi; dinner fit for a king, and a queen.
November 28th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
08:20 PM: We had more leftovers. Tonight, we finished the pineapple soufflé, and made a pretty big dent in the remaining turkey. But we’ve much left still. We may have to freeze some.
December 1st, 2009 at 3:44 pm
05:45 PM: We just finished the potatoes, corn, green bean casserole, and cauliflower. Most all the leftovers have been devoured.
05:50 PM: Washing all table cloths and other linens from this event.
May 5th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
[...] AM: Sister Mary Ann called. Mom and I are hosting a Thanksgiving dinner here and Mary Ann called to say that she and her family would be here. Possibly sister Jojo [...]