Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my families favorite holiday! We go all out with planning starting weeks in advance to figure out what new recipes to encorporate and which ones to keep from previous years. Regardless, it is always great to be home with my parents, brother and this year both of my grandmas.  I arrived Monday evening and my parents had already done the grocery shopping so I actually got to spend some time with just my mom, which was really nice. We made two cranberry sauces ahead of time to get a jump start on all of the food to come. I highly suggest making whatever you can in advance to cut down on what has to be done the day of Thanksgiving. Wednesday was when everyone else trickled in through out the day and night and all of a sudden it was a full house! My dad is known for his amazing pie crusts, so as soon as he got home, he was put to work on crusts so that my mom and I could make the pumpkin and pecan pies, we save apple until the day of. Finally, Thanksgiving day arrived and we were pretty much all in the kitchen most of the morning and again all afternoon. We were able to squeeze in a family walk with the dog to get fresh air and some exercise before over-indulging. We tried new recipes for all of our stuffings, two new pies and new veggie dishes, it was quite the risk but seemed to pay off. Check out our gorgeous turkey, spread and family:


Another tradition we have started is having our family friends over for dessert. We grew up across the street from each other and have since all moved all over. With everyone home for the holidays it has been really nice to have our meals with family and dessert with them. In addition to traditional pies we always make turkey shaped sugar cookies, my brothers favorite. I don't think we had any shortage of desserts!


This is also a special holiday because my brother was born on Thanksgiving, so despite it not being the same every year we are all together to celebrate his birthday, even if it was a few days early this year ;) Since he had to get back to NYC Friday we celebrated over breakfast with our favorite sour cream coffee cake, it still counts as a birthday cake right? Now it is back home and back to reality until next year.