This year my oldest son hosted Thanksgiving. We had decided earlier that we would not have turkey since many of us were also having another Thanksgiving dinner on Friday, and two turkey dinners in a row just seemed to be ridiculously redundant.
In our famiy it’s all about the food, and too much is definitely not enough. So we started out with appetizers, spanikopita, bruschetta and smoked slamon. When there are Italians involved there is always pasta, so the next course was stuffed shells. Then, salad while we waited for the tenderloin to finish. By that time we were nearly full anyhow, but that didn’t stop us. In addition to the tenderloin, we had homemade cranberry sauce, brussels sprouts, baked potatoes, fully loaded, and this year I decided to bring corn pudding which was quite good, so I am going to play with it and make it a standard. Desert was pie, apple, cherry and pumpkin.
Of course, the best part of the day was really being with the entire family, something that rarely happens when my other son and daughter in law live so far away. In addition, this year my 86 year old Dad was also in town. We’ve had our differences over the years, but we’ve made up and it was great to have him join us.
As a family, we all get along pretty well and joke and have fun and play silly card games together, and it was a very pleasant afternoon and evening.
At dinner Dad said,” J, you really have a very nice family.”
“Yes, I do, thank you,Dad. Remember, you started it.”
And in spite of any family drama past or present, I really do feel that I have a wonderful family, and I am very, very thankful. It’s feeling a little bittersweet, though. The thought is also in my mind this year that this could be the last time the entire family is ever all together at the same time.
Here’s the family group portrait, minus the Papaya, who was sleeping. I’ll have to photoshop her in there somewhere later.