thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a really great, relaxing Thanksgiving.  Ours was not super relaxing, but it was nice.  We host Thanksgiving at the school my husband works in (the school supplies the room, we supply all of the food and labor, it's still totally a family event), which allows us to not only accommodate our very large family, but also any students who do not have host families to spend the holiday with.  This year we had 32 people for dinner!  And you know what?  We STILL ended up with more leftovers than we knew what to do with.  Like, seriously, how does that even happen?  We donated most of the good leftovers to a local organization that feeds and shelters homeless teenagers, so they went somewhere useful at least, instead of perishing in my fridge.  But I still ended up with pounds of mashed potatoes, bags of unused carrots, roasted vegetables and a whole turkey carcass.

We played a rousing game of Bingo, wrote on our Thanksgiving tree, drank wine (OK, maybe only two of us drank wine...who is counting anyway?), and served an entirely delicious meal free of dairy and eggs.  BAM.  No one even knew.  Well, except we told them, and they could see that Nikola was eating everything, but you know what I mean.  No one missed the butter.  That's what I mean.

Sometimes I miss the comfort of doing the holiday in our home, because there is a lot of clean up afterward that you wouldn't have in your own home.  (Like I said, this is a family event, so we have to break everything down, wash all the dishes, return the facility back to its original state.)   But the amazing trade off is getting to welcome more people to our table than our home could, and isn't that what it's about? 

Until next year, Thanksgiving!