Happy Thanksgiving!

I have barely thought about cooking this Thanksgiving.  I mean I bought the turkeys a couple weeks ago.  And I remembered to get them out of the freezer and start defrosting them on Monday.  And I remembered to get the ingredients necessary, a few every time I went shopping, which seemed to be every other day, for some reason or another.  So it wasn't like I did a great big Thanksgiving shopping.  And last night about 8:00 or so I checked to see what time I should put the turkey in if I wanted to go to 10:00 Mass.  And I chopped up the celery.  But really I just don't have that big overwhelming planning feeling I usually get.

The menu is:

2 Turkeys ( I do one roasted with stuffing.  I LOVE stuffing but only eat it once a year!  Rick has been doing a rotisserie turkey out on the gas grill every year lately.  Delicious.  I like it better than the oven roasted but I need the stuffing, so we do two and have lots of turkey meat left over.)
Stuffing - I just make a really simple savory stuffing with bread crumbs, celery (and lots of celery seed; to me stuffing is largely about celery), butter, onions, chicken broth and seasonings.  I love in turkey stuffing!
Mashed potatoes - dread the peeling, but mashed potatoes makes everybody happy.
Cranberry sauce - I just simmer cranberries and sugar and water until it is just right.  Yum.

That's what I make.

My sister in law always brings:

green beans and fruit salad
rolls
sweet potato casserole (with marshmallows - we both agree these are absolutely essential)

My father in law, his lady friend and my widower brother in law bring:

pies - usually pumpkin and apple; occasionally a pecan pie is included.

My father in law's lady friend is bringing kugel as well.  I am imagining a sweet kugel of some sort.  This is something new.  We've never done kugel for Thanksgiving before.

We managed to clean the enormous piles of clutter out of our dining room, which is an official dumping ground when it isn't being used for festive occasions.  We are trying to figure out how to seat 15 including a wheelchair, which is something new too.  I mean the wheelchair, we've had 15 guests before.

So right now I need to get my aunt up, get her her medicine, make her breakfast, chop onions, saute onions and celery in lots of butter, stir into bread crumbs, add chicken broth to get the right moisture level, add seasonings, rinse and clean turkey, sprinkle with seasoning, slather with butter and olive oil, stuff with stuffing, get it into the oven, help my aunt get dressed, take a quick shower and dress myself, go to mass (somewhere in there I'll have eaten breakfast too).

When I'm home again, I'll rally troops to tidy up the house a bit more (the dining room looks great but every other room could use some help).

Make cranberry sauce

Peel and boil potatoes.

Make sure Rick's on target with his turkey.

Folks are expected arrive sometime after noon but before 1:00 p.m.  Eating at 2:00 (for my father in law who doesn't like to drive in the dark anymore.)

Most of all though I'll have a good time hanging out with my older kids.  It is wonderful to have them home for this holiday!

Happy Thanksgiving again!  (Wow, writing this out really helped me!)