A Day of Thanks (and also giving)

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. By far. And not just because it’s a lazy holiday where you do nothing but eat turkey and spend time with family (although all that is great, too). The reason, though, that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday is because it signals the start of what I think is the best month of the year. Christmas. There is no other day of the year that starts with turkey and ends in Santa. Thanksgiving is filled with anticipation and excitement and beginnings. It is when the decorations come up and the shopping begins and the music starts playing on the radio and all the TV specials start playing. You might think I’d say my favorite holiday is Christmas, but Christmas signals the end of the season. Thanksgiving signals the beginning. And that is why I will always love Thanksgiving (well, all that and the pie).
So, it only goes to reason that today was a very special day. And this year was extra special, because Mike and I cooked a Thanksgiving meal for the first time together.
It turned out great. No, more than great. I really have to give most the credit to Mike who studied recipes for about a month in preparation. And who started cooking on Monday. But, oh, did it ever pay off.
Exhibit A, the turkey (before and after):
 
Doesn’t the after look amazing? That’s because it was. A little bit of Mike’s soul went into making this turkey. He brined and seasoned and aromatics-ed and made a little tinfoil turkey triangle. Then we ate it as fast as he could slice.
Exhibit B, the spread:

Mike was in charge of the turkey, potatoes, gravy and cornbread. I did the green bean casserole, the carrots, and the cranberry sauce. I’m glad he trusted me with all those things that the meal would totally be complete without. (Although I must say I made a killer cranberry sauce).
Also, note the Christmas tree behind us. How can you celebrate Thanksgiving and properly usher in the month of Christmas if you aren’t allowed to decorate early? You can’t. You just can’t. I don’t really care what anyone says, Christmas decorations should go up right before Thanksgiving. Not right after.
The saddest part of the day was that Tennyson is working on his next set of four teeth (why this kid insists on always having four come through at the same time, I will never understand) so he’s kind of on a food strike.

So he took a few bites of potatoes and then drank some Thanksgiving juice. Today he got unlimited juice. It was the best holiday he’s ever had (at least in his book).

Then he spent the rest of meal time posing for his myspace profile picture.

I jest, I jest, Tennyson is far too cool for myspace.
In my opinion, every Thanksgiving meal must end with a park and some sort of game involving a ball. It’s an unwritten rule. So off in the wagon we went to our neighborhood park, ball in tow.

And, in the Cawley tradition, we played a pick up game of soccer. Because soccer > football. (And also because I don’t think Tennyson gets the technicalities of football quite like he gets kicking a ball from one place to the next).
  
The game probably would have been more fun if Tennyson didn’t take the “pick up” part so seriously. Oh well.

Thanksgiving is just the best. And now the month of Christmas begins. Life couldn’t be better right now (well, if I’m being honest, 2.0 could be a little more gentle, but I’ll take what I can get).

happy

beginning-of-christmas-month

day.

we hope yours was the best.