Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was a lot of fun because our family got to play host for the very first time. Marcus's mother, two sisters, and brother-in-law Josh all came here to Gainesville to spend Thanksgiving with us. At the last minute, Marcus brother, Mike, and his family also decided to drive up and join us for the day. I was excited and slightly anxious about cooking so many different dishes for 10 people in my tiny kitchen, but everyone pitched in and helped and it went as smoothly as I'd hoped. We had turkey, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn on the cob, green bean casserole and crescent rolls, with pumpkin pie, strawberry cheesecake, and Aunt Traci's specialty, grasshopper pie, for dessert. Marcus insisted at the last second on rearranging the furniture so all 10 of us could sit at the table (that is designed for 4 people), which provided me with a little unnecessary stress. Regardless, we were eventually seated and had a wonderful meal together. Marcus tried to make everyone say 10
original things that they were thankful for this year, but a family protest brought him down to five, and everyone participated in the little tradition. That night we played poker and spoons and laughed quite a bit for an excellent conclusion to our first Thanksgiving in our own home :).


The day after Thanksgiving, we did a little shopping, though I didn't buy anything. I have never been shopping on Black Friday before, and I don't plan to do it again anytime in the future. It was a little frightening to see our little mall so transformed into a swarm of greedy, hurried people. Some stores were so full that I couldn't even get the stroller in the door, and the check-out lines were atrocious. That night after Marcus got off work, we drove the three hours to Marc's brother's house in Melbourne Beach and spent another day with family there. Caleb had a lot of fun running around Mike & Gigi's huge house with his cousin Chase, and then later on a bike ride to the park with his dad. By the time we got home late Saturday night, I was exhausted from over a week of traveling, cleaning, cooking, and traveling some more, but I didn't regret any of it :).

1 comment:

April said...

Glad you had a good Thanksgiving, Rachel! We did, too. Our thanksgiving was here at our new house this year, also. This was our first time to host such a big event. David's parents, brother, and Mom and Mark were all here. We had fun. Love ya!