Thankful

So, to start the holiday season off (I consider "the holidays" Thanksgiving through New Years), Truitt's school had a Thanksgiving Powwow. This was interesting for us since we actually go to real powwows. It left Truitt a little confused, but he'll snap back from it. And we got some really cute pictures:

Truitt and his buddy Ollie in their head gear. Ollie took his paper bag vest off but you can see the top of Truitt's.

A rare moment of shyness.

Truitt and his classmates sharing a meal. Unfortunately some of the meal involved red punch and cheetos, but he, he will survive.

As always, Mathis was happy just to be there and watch big brother in action.

Finally, the party culminated in a special Thanksgiving song, sung to the tune of "On Top Of Spaghetti" which I have had in my head ever since.

Talk about herding cats. Mama thinks she probably should have got them together for the song before the sugar kicked in ;)

It was a year last week since my Grandmother died. Is ironic the right word to describe the fact that her battle with cancer ended 3 days before her favorite holiday, the one we all gather home for? Honestly, I think she would have gone sooner but wanted to wait, to get as close as she could, and have our whole family there.

Thanksgiving in Massachusetts wouldn't be the same without her so my mother and brother decided to come South for the holiday. My inlaws also came from Corpus and it was nice to have a full house and lots of helpful hands. Gram was all about food, so it's no wonder this was her fave holiday. We tried to stay pretty true to the food traditions, which was a challenge without the chef. Luckily, in an old notebook tucked between all my cookbooks I found a scrap of paper that had the "recipe" (and use that term very loosely) for her stuffing which no one has ever seen elsewhere. She dictated it to me a few years ago and involves things like "a lot of celery." My mother, brother and I all worked on it and are pleased to announce it was pretty close. A little tweeking and it will be perfect next year!

The stuffing, made from meat, celery, onions and Bell's seasoning. So good!

Other traditional foods include:

Turkey. We cooked a huge one. 22+ lbs. I took the bones and some meat and made turkey stock which I then made in to turkey soup with orzo, which is something Gram also always did.

Turkey served on one of the platters from Gram's china circa early 1960s. I have spent the last few years collecting pieces from eBay and china replacement websites.

Boiled onions: We couldn't find the jarred pearl onions she used, so Ed made these from raw onions. They weren't exactly the same but they were really good. Not something everyone likes, but definitely tradition in our family.

We also had turnip, which my mother insisted on. Mashed potatoes. Rolls. We forgot the peas in all the hustle and bustle but my brother wanted to add something new to the menu and we had some awesome sauteed brussle sprouts as our green veggie.

Another tradition is Eddie eating the leg. On a 22lb turkey, he had one of caveman like proportions on his plate.

And last, our Thanksgiving Ham: