Thanksgiving 2020

We had a very nice day together yesterday, though we missed having P. home. We did video chat with her a bit at least. The early part of the day was spent either relaxing or working on food for dinner. There was some game playing as well.

This was a giant game of Dutch Blitz. You can get an expansion pack for it so eight people can play at once, which is a bit overwhelming, I'm told.

When not preparing food, or trying to light a bonfire,fighting for a place in line for the washing machine, or setting the table for dinner... 

J. and I tag-teamed sitting with R. I have no idea whether it was just the holiday itself or something triggered a memory, but for the past couple of days she has been dealing with PTSD flashbacks. Unlike in the past, these never developed into a full-fledged seizure, but it takes concerted effort by me or J. to keep her calm. She was only slightly better today. I'm hoping a good night's sleep (oh, how I hope for a good night's sleep) and another calm day will help her do a reset. 

But since this is life as normal for us, we are fairly adept at working around it. As it got closer to dinner, I needed to sit with R., so everyone else got the good ready for dinner. B. made the cream sauce for the creamed onions,

(Since I took no photos, I asked everyone who did to send me what they took. This explains some of the more unusual ones I have.)

carved the second turkey, and warmed everything that we had made in advance. Everyone is very competent in the kitchen, and my presence isn't always necessary. R. and I read Thanksgiving stories which helped regulate her enough so that we could actually sit down to dinner.

Since we usually dress for dinner when it is not just us, we decided to do that this year, too. 

G. on left, L. on right

E., TM, and J. (TM really wanted a picture with us. I'm very happy to have this.)

Someone put a bow on Kenzie's collar, so he dressed up, too.

We started out with a tray of appetizers. I had made cowboy candy earlier in the summer and canned it. (It's essentially candied hot peppers. It's got that addictive sweet-hot-thing going on.) We put it over creamed cheese and goat cheese and had it on crackers.

(Some photographers were kind of in the hand model-thing.)

We ate, laughed, ate some more, laughed until some people started to cry, and decided it was time for dessert.

We like pie around here. There is actually a fifth pumpkin pie that is still put away. We firmly believe in having enough pie so that you can have pie for breakfast a couple of mornings as well. I mean if you are going to the trouble of all that baking, you might as well make the most of it. I think W. outdid himself with these this year.

As usual, we finished off the evening with a family viewing of A Child's Christmas in Wales, which officially kicks off our Christmas season. The kitchen was cleaned up and put away including the china and crystal all before midnight. It was a good Thanksgiving. We are very, very blessed. 

But we did miss P.