The First Thanksgiving

When I decided I would cook Thanksgiving dinner, I went a little overboard. This is nothing new for me, when I decide to do something; I want to do it up big. I decided I would roast a turkey, cook three casseroles (green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, and broccoli and cheese casserole), homemade mashed potatoes, stuffing, and pecan pie bars. I spent all week researching recipes and figuring out the timing, so it was all planned out perfectly. Because when you’re cooking things always go perfectly....

I said that like my kitchen exploded, it wasn't that disastrous, just a few little normal cooking hiccups. The day before Thanksgiving, I cooked the pecan pie bars and broccoli and cheese casserole.  I learned that corn syrup and vegetable oil are not the same thing. NOT EVEN NEAR THE SAME THING. And then I bought regular broccoli as opposed to chopped broccoli, so my broccoli and cheese casserole became less like a casserole and more like "broccoli with stuff on it." (But Still Delicious).

Thanksgiving Day found me completely intimidated by my turkey. Seriously, I avoided that turkey for as long as I could. I just didn't know what to do with it and I knew I would screw it up.  So I unwrapped it, and just stared at this ugly, cold thing for a few minutes. Then I slathered it in butter and threw it in the oven. But there was a moment when it was cooking that I was sure it wasn't going to cook right. For no other reason than I'm just neurotic like that. And I may have nearly broke down and cried about how I the turkey wasn't going to turn out and how I was going to ruin the whole thanksgiving meal and that these are the memories we will never get back!. But it actually turned out really well! But I didn't snap a picture of it because it didn't look so pretty.

But the food was delicious, and because I put in all that effort it was all that more special when we finally sat down to eat two hours later than planned. But I was so exhausted when it was over that I spent the rest of the day playing old school donkey kong on the XBOX and laying around. And if you needed proof of how hard I worked on Thursday, just know the next day I woke up with the worst sinus infection that I'm still not completely over.