The Greatest Thanksgiving Ever

While myself and my kitchen are still recovering from the weeks events, I think I can confidently say that it was quite possibly one of our greatest Thanksgivings ever. We knew that cooking for, seating, and entertaining about 20 of our local friends was ambitious, I don't think we had any idea how special the evening would be.

Here is the first (of a few) grocery store/market trips to prepare all the bounty:

Lesson learned: when you buy new furniture, make sure it's not scheduled to come the day (4) rented tables and (15) chairs are also scheduled to be delivered, or that it's not the day before you host a major event in your home. Your home turning into a furniture warehouse in a 15 minute time frame can be a bit stress inducing. 

 

This is my "hair back, no makeup or shower in about 2 days, pretending it's all under control and you are confident that the 10 lbs of potatoes you put into this dish you've never made is delicious" look.

Table set and ready! (and yes, I am a bit OCD and had tablecloths made and stole colorful leaves from the park so that the table would look "pretty")

 Friends arriving and making "hand turkeys" of thankfulness. 

Friends sharing what they're thankful for, and me using the camera to hide my tears at the meaningfulness of it all.

My hand turkey:

 And quite sadly, there is no video evidence of our dramatic reading of "The First Thanksgiving". My genius husband wrote a brief summary about the history of Thanksgiving, and assigned a friend or group of friends a role in the story. When he read their name at any point in the story, they were to say a sundry of hysterical things. For example, every time he said the word "pilgrims" a group would say "ENGLAND STINKS", and give a big thumbs down. The Mayflower would say "All aboard! TOOT!! TOOT!! (I almost wet my pants every time this group said their part! The word "toot" is foreign to most locals here : ) But perhaps the best was Squanto, who said "HOW . . . can I help you?" It was an absolute riot, and our friends participated and enjoyed it immensely more than we could have hoped.

All in all it was a wonderful night, one that moved me to laughter and tears on several occasions. I can't imagine a sweeter way to celebrate all that we're thankful for!