Turkey panic aside, I started cooking and getting ready last night. The meat thermometer has been located, silver serving dishes are polished, the extra leaf is in the table, and the taters are all ready to go (both mashed potatoes and sweet potato casserole). Tonight comes making the stuffing, and the table-setting. The goal is to have tomorrow morning free to deal solely with the mysterious turkey stuffing and roasting situation, while maybe taking a pre-emptive run and keeping the kids from completely trashing the house before everyone arrives.
My big fear is that the turkey won't cook well, or enough, or on time. I'm not a fan of the midday Thanksgiving dinner; late afternoon is more my family tradition, but we seem to be subject to local relatives' customs, and custody arrangements, the years when we're here. Also, the timing allows the kiddos to conveniently go down for a nap right afterward. But still, it makes the morning really hectic, and then after all that eating at midday, what do you do for the rest of the day after everyone goes home? It just seems kind of anticlimactic. At least when dinner is at normal dinnertime, you have all day to anticipate, prepare, inhale the yummy cooking aromas, drool, and afterward you only have a few hours of feeling disgustingly overstuffed and bloated before you can indulge the tryptophan effect and crash for the night.
On a more serious note, it's that time of the year when we freely express our thanks for what we have. So here are the things I might mention tomorrow, if I were at my parents' house and indulging in our annual tradition of going around the table and saying what we're thankful for during grace:
- for being healthy, employed, housed, clothed, literate, educated, and lucky enough to live in this beautiful part of the world;
- for being married and the parents of two healthy children;
- for our families, friends, and everyone's doggies;
- for the good choices we've made in life, and the ability to make them;
- for the church, schools, and organizations we're part of; and
- for our free country, even if we don't like what's going on right now.
Of course, if we were at my parents' house, continued annual tradition dictates that the dinner conversation would then rapidly degenerate into tasteless humor, stupid impersonations (think Tommy Boy and the "Ding! Fries are Done!" guy), and stories involving bodily functions that leave most of us either snarfing our drinks or paralyzed with laughter. And even while some of us mildly protest sullying the occasion with such crudeness, deep down we're thankful for our shared sick sense of humor.
UPDATE:
The turkey was still hard as a rock by late afternoon Wednesday despite the soaking treatment. So we stuck it back in the freezer and bought another, smaller turkey that wasn't frozen. And by some miracle it came out perfectly and right on time, even with me in charge. Luckily I remembered the sad story of my M-I-L's first attempt to cook a turkey and removed all the yicky parts stowed inside before rinsing, stuffing and roasting mine. B-I-L, despite enjoying his perfectly high-heat-roasted drumstick, seemed a tad offended that we'd not used his freebie turkey, and proceeded to take it with him when he left. Maybe we'll see it again at Christmastime.
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