Thanksgiving

Gobble gobble! It's turkey time, boys and girls! You know what that means! It’s time to get your holiday cheer on, so warm up that oven and drag out those decorations!

Now, before we get ahead of ourselves, with the little miniature Christmas villages, and the reindeer that light up in the front yard, we have to get ready for one of the most delicious holidays all year. That’s right, it’s Thanksgiving.

Now, however fun and yummy this holiday is, it is a TON of work. You have to make that yearly, three-hour-long, two-hundred-dollar trip to Stop and Shop, which is no fun at all, I can tell you that. You have to load up on the ingredients for the stuffing, pies, potatoes, rolls and veggies. Not to mention the race to find the perfectly plump Butterball turkey before the woman over by the canned beets snaps it up, because you know she was eyeing it earlier.

However, once you muscle all of these ingredients for the picture-perfect American holiday through the register, aggravated that the sullen cashier doesn’t give you the right change, and once you load it into the car, and unload it at home, and drag it all up the stairs to the kitchen, fighting the turkey and cursing yourself for buying that 23-pound one, and not the 19 pounder because it would have been a WHOLE lot lighter, you still have to cook it all.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to hate on Thanksgiving. It’s one of my favorite holidays. Not to mention that my Mom always does an AMAZING job on everything and I get to see my family. But last year, oh boy. That was an experience. 

Last year, my mom broke her arm the week before Thanksgiving. It was too late to cancel with all of my relatives. So, I ended up cooking the ENTIRE meal for 12
people. That’s right. I did absolutely everything. I shopped and I cleaned and I chopped and pureed and stirred and tasted and mashed my way through three straight days of Thanksgiving preparation. I had to miss school the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, to make pies and stuffing and salads. I had to learn how to cook a turkey - cleaning the giblets out of a dead bird at six o'clock in the morning was horrifying for my little 15-year-old self.

However, everything DID work out perfectly, as exhausted as I was at the end of it all. I even experimented a little. Have you ever put bacon on a turkey before cooking it? Try it this year, it’s delicious. Needless to say, my family has decided to eat out this Thanksgiving, unconventional, yes but I’ve heard rave reviews about the West Valley Inn’s thanksgiving dinner. Regardless of whether you plan to go traditional or unconventional this year, enjoy your Turkey Day and don’t work too hard!

“Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence." - Erma Bombeck

Until next week!

Rach