1st Thanksgiving as MRS = A Success!

Oh the nerves as Thanksgiving approached! I was so incredibly stressed and I didn't even realize it. Let's rewind to the week prior to Thanksgiving.

Word spreads fast. My dear husband, in his desire to look out for some of his fellow Marines on the "comfort food" holiday, invited a few Marines over to eat. Now please understand, each Marine eats the portion of at least 2 normal people. 2 RSVP equaled 4 folks in my head. My good friends were also planning to stay in town, so I invited them over as well. With a party of 6 to cook for, I began planning my menu. I've heard the horror stories about baking a whole turkey and the inside NOT being completely cook. So, I decided to modernize the process a bit, and cook the breast of the turkey only (with homemade gravy of course). I found some great recipes for cider glazed stuffed turkey breast, so I thought I'd try that out. Great. Now, let's see... what else sounds yummy? Grandma's stuffing. Oh yes yes yes! And... yams, of course. Green beans and cranberry sauce. And um, pumpkin pie. Yes...the PERFECT menu for my 1st Thanksgiving dinner as a MRS. I started my grocery shopping and $200 later, I felt 100% prepared to start cooking.

So as Saturday came, Thanksgiving felt closer than ever! The natural next step was to figure out what to cook first. As I began thinking through the dishes, I realized that it was physically impossible to cook my entire menu in one day. (Then I recalled my grandmother cooking days before Thanksgiving in years past. I finally understood.) When I finished backtracking time, I realized I'd need to start cooking on Tuesday for dinner on Thursday. WOW! I had no idea this was going take that long. Well, with cleaning the house and picking up a few last minute items, I may as well start setting the table 4 days beforehand. Geezz. In an effort to not over stress and cut down on the work, I decided to take out Grandma's stuffing and substitute bag stuffing. (Love Grandma's stuffing but it is a 2 day process by itself!) We'll talk about why that was a terrible idea later!

Fast forward to the day before Thanksgiving: Bright and early, I awoke...cooking and cleaning. I began by unwrapping my turkey breasts. I felt the cold mushy flesh of an animal for the first time. (Yuck! I usually get boneless skinless chicken, so this was very new to me.) I almost lost my stomach as I put them in the apple cider brine. After 17 hours of absorbing the sage, thyme, and apple cider mixture I was ready to manually de-bone and divide up my turkey breasts to prepare them for being stuffed. All in all, the turkey process was not only long...but incredibly...uneasy on the stomach. I ended the night with my hair all over my head. I'd worked up a decent sweat just getting the house in order. I spent the remainder of the day preparing a few dishes so Thanksgiving day was dedicated to finishing the turkey, making the gravy, and reheating other dishes. The table was set, the beautiful bouquet was on the table, and the cranberry was chilling, stuffing ready to be baked, green beans ready to boil, yams all done, and pumpkin pie ready to be devoured. I finally fell into bed around 1:30a.m. (On my way to bed, I noticed, my dear husband had cleaned the guest room and vacuumed the carpet. So sweet.)

Bright and early, my alarm woke me around 8:30a.m. I knew my dear friend Kim (and her husband) were coming over around 9 to help me finish cooking. Michael got up and finished cleaning up the house as I finished cooking. Kim and Kenny showed up (with their beautiful snuggly 3 mo. old daughter, Addison). Cooking commenced. Throughout the process, I realized I didn't have a roasted turkey wing to make my gravy. (It wouldn't be memorable if I didn't forget something!) So, Kenny and Michael went to the grocery store to hunt down a roasted turkey wing. Well, the closest thing they came up with was a raw turkey leg. : ( So, homemade turkey gravy left the menu as fast as it had come. No worries, that shaved an hour off our cooking time. Finally we were down to putting the turkey in the oven. The final step, such an awesome feeling. Kim and I excitedly stuck the turkey in the oven and then realized we had NO idea how to tell if it was done. Trip #2 to the store. Kim and I went this time to get a meat thermometer. Sold out you say? Almost. We found the last few. (So we bought 2 just in case!) Back home, thermometer's in and meat was cooking! I smiled a sigh of relief as the work was finally done! I even had a few extra minutes to video chat (SKYPE) with my family back home in Texas.

Time for me to get myself together. As I walked toward my room, it dawned on me that I'd been staring at those same pants for at least the past 2 days. I looked in the mirror and realized I hadn't slept but a few hours over the past 3 days. I'd gotten so lost in getting ready for the holidays that I completely forgot to put myself back together. I took a little time to myself, and thanks to Bobbi Brown, MAC, Olive Oil (the brand), and Victoria Secret... I was back to my fabulous self.

That night, I slept for almost 14 hours. Clearly, I was worn out. The dinner was great. Truly truly great. (Seriously, Kim's husband, Kenny ate like 10 slices of stuffed turkey!) My husband enjoyed the food. Our friends hung out after dinner and we spent the evening with pumpkin pie, cool whip, a snuggle doggy, a cuddly 3 mo. old, and Transformers 2. What a blast!

PS: Bag stuffing is a NO GO in the future. It was bad, but it WAS NOT GRANDMA's stuffing!