Ugh. It's over. Well, kinda. If you don't count the few hours it's going to take to get the leftovers packed up and put into the freezer, make soup stock from the ham bone, pick up countless plastic cups, pop and beer cans, and somehow figure out how to disassemble the tent structure we had up out side; Thanksgiving is over for the year.
Every year, my husband and I decide to act like crazy people and invite all those who dare, to come to our house for Turkey Day. It's mostly for our friends that have either no family or their family lives too far away. Last year we had about 30 for dinner and an additional 25 or so stopped by for pie, drinks and conversation. We ran out of food, no leftovers to speak of. This year we invited the same amount of people, and we cooked twice as much. Half the people showed. So even though we had a wonderful time, we have lots of leftovers. Oh and did I mention that our house is about the size of a shoebox? We erected a tent out in the driveway with an outdoor fire pit, tables, and lighting strung up. Makes it pretty interesting when it rains.
But as usual at my house, all good plans can go awry. This years festivities started off well. I made all the pies on Wednesday. I was very proud of myself for that one. I awoke Thursday morning around eight, and started making my side dishes. First time ever I made sweet potatoes. And not the yucky canned yams either. I actually had to peel these suckers. I don't like that marshmallow crap you put on them either, so I substituted graham cracker crumbs. Turned out pretty good. My hubby actually ate some, and he hates sweet potato/yam stuff. Then I got the green bean casserole ready. Another thing I think I've made once.
Anyway, I was doing pretty good time wise at this point. Then I decided to get the ham ready, with the glaze and all that. One of my ingredients for the glaze in Dr. Pepper. Sounds gross, but strangely it's not. I had bought a whole 2 liter bottle, (not sure why), and when I was facing the stove, I attempted to open it. Well, gee it must of got shook up at some point in the last few days, because I ended up spraying the entire kitchen with it. The stove top, the fridge (which I had left hanging open), the kitchen sink that was filled with clean dishes sitting in the drainer, the floor, the table, and two dogs. Normally I would of started yelling at that point, but things had been going so well and I knew something was bound to mess it up. I just started laughing. Big, straight from the gut laughing guffaws. With tears streaming out of my eyes, I figured that if my husband would have walked in at that time, he probably would have drove me straight to the nut house. But thankfully he didn't.
I got the mess cleaned up, and things were going smooth again. My sister showed up with her kids and mine in tow. So of course we decided that this would be a good time to put up the tent. You know that old joke, how many whatevers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Well, this was kind of like "How many family members does it take to put up a gazebo shaped tent, after you cant find the instructions?" The answer is: six. One to walk around with his hands on his hips, spouting out instructions (Hubby), one to actually try to direct the children politely (my sis), one to keep saying "well, I don't know what I'm doing!" (Sis's kid #1), One to try to get the rest of us to believe that they knew exactly what they were doing (my kid), one to moan forlornly that they couldn't reach as high as the rest of us (Sis's kid #2), and one to walk around looking like they were actually helping but not (me). But apparently this method works, because it actually stayed up the whole time, even after it started raining.
Yes, raining. We have not had rain in about three weeks, and the weather dudes had said that we were supposed to have clear blue skys after a little early day fog. Yeah, right. It started out as a little sprinkle. No biggie. But after awhile, it was pretty much a deluge. Half the guests (mostly kids) hid in the house with video games. The rest of us braved it out. The tables got moved back under the tent, sort of, and it wasn't so bad. We took turns pushing the sagging tent up to spill out the pooled up water. I only did this myself once. After that one time, when most of the water went on my head, I decided that I just didn't have the talent for it.
So anyway, all in all, the day went good. I still have an entire turkey left and 99% of the second ham, and an entire pumpkin pie, and my hubby is in the kitchen doing dishes, so I'm content. The rain has stopped for a while, so I think I'll go out and see how long it will take me to take the tent down by myself. You might want to pray for me. HA!
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