"Other Than That, Mrs. Lincoln, How Did You Like the Play?"

What a Thanksgiving. The best I can say is, all the food turned out great, and once again, although I place the stuffing in the bird before cooking on low all night and serving at 1pm, no one got sick. This is a pic right before Hubby took it from the pan to carve. That's the 23 pounder.

So I got up that am, and Hubby was in his "Stay off of your feet" mode since I've had swelling due to the toes. But there were things I had to do, and since I didn't do them the night before as usual, I got behind. We always borrow a table from the church to have one long enough; mine seats six, plus we sit that out buffet style, load all the food onto it, and eat at the church table. I always use a disposable seasonal tablecloth and the drapey part is the most-decorated. I have a tree outside that has the most beautiful variegated leave of gold, green, orange and yellow, and I arrange these down the center of the table and throw in a few pine cones. Add two candle sticks and pilgrim candles and you're all set. Here's the table from 2004.Anyway, the table was retrieved late (an hour before dinnertime!!!) and in the hustle of getting it decorated (Searcher didn't want to gather leaves for me) I didn't get the potatoes started in time and we waited for them to get done. Then when I went out to get the leaves, I tripped over the screw-hook used to anchor the dogs' leads, and went falling to the ground, thinking as I went that surely I was going to break an arm or wrist. But I fell on soft ground and only sprained the foot that had the surgery. Ow. Then 30 minutes before eating time, Searcher's friend called and asked if she could pick her up since she was out of gas. Lovely. She lives 20 minutes away if traffic is good. I told Searcher to tell her to call a cab and I'd pay. Ten minutes later she called and told me the price, which I knew, and she hadn't called the cab yet. She and Searcher decided to skip dinner with us and Searcher took her a huge plate of food later. Searcher says she's terribly shy and would have pretty much not liked sitting around the table with family anyway. Then one of Searcher's coworkers, from Mexico, has no family here and he was supposed to come. He plain just didn't show. Nice. On the good side, Ripped's girlfriend, Sweetness, came even though she was not feeling well. They ate here at 1 and at her house at 5. I told them that after they were married I expected them to take over the cookin'. The reason I did it every year was so Hubby and I didn't have to worry about whose house to go to. (Don't ask me why suddenly I have blue underlined type.)

Now, Hubby was awesome. Since my parents couldn't be here, I took them a lot of the leftovers for their turkey dinner, and while I was driving that around, he had most of the mess cleaned up!!!! What an awesome man. He truly wanted me off my feet. I did jump in and had him take a nap while I finished up, but there wasn't much to do. He even did the turkey roaster!!

In the evening, we had long-time good friends over for a couple hours. It was a lovely visit, but I forgot how tired I am the night of Thanksgiving. I usually just veg.

So that was the day. And for those of you still reading this, WAKE UP!!!! It's over.

Later.