Thanksgiving Weekend

This was our first year away from our families as a married couple. We had both spent Thanksgiving away from home before when we were single (Brody on his mission, and I during my infamous month-long cruise) but this was the first time it fell upon our shoulders to actually cook our own little feast. I was especially nervous at the idea of cooking a turkey by myself, but we decided if there was ever a no-pressure "trial-run" this was it. So on Wednesday we went to Trader Joe's, (along with half the city apparently...) and loaded up on some goodies for our meal.

this is the line in front of us, and behind us. We were at the very back of the store, but it moves very fast, they have about 30 checkout stations and are super efficient.

Since it was just the two of us, we decided to do a little turkey breast instead of the whole bird, and Trader Joe's had the perfect 3-lb, pre-stuffed option for us (the idea of "de-gibbleting" an actual turkey still grosses me out), so we happily snatched up one of only two breasts left on the shelf. We made some yummy whole-grain croissants that were to die for, some delicious mashed potatoes and gravy, some asparagus and mushrooms, and of course had the delicious cranberry-apple stuffing.

This is the only picture I took, we didn't want our food getting cold :) The meal turned out pretty good if I do say so myself, and the whole experience made me fully appreciate how amazing my mother is. Every year, the woman makes everything from scratch (yes, she even makes her stuffing from scratch the night before, endlessly cutting up celery and onions and bread crumbs), she makes the cranberry sauce from actual cranberries, boiling them, straining, them, sugaring them... my dad actually mashes real potatoes and yams by hand, before using the mixer, it's truly amazing amd rare and I can now fully appreciate their yearly, heroic fete. Maybe someday we will get to that level (maybe being the operative word there).

In all, it was a relaxing, low-key Thanksgiving and even though I thoroughly missed my usual midnight, black-Friday madness with my friends and sisters, it was great to spend time with Brody before I completely lose him to the utter insanity that will be his finals this semester. We whiled away the rest of the afternoon listening to Christmas music, putting up our two (yes, we literally only have two) Christmas decorations, and watching some football (really Brody watched football while I pinterested and browsed online shopping).

We have so much to be thankful for, what a great day/time of year to reflect and re-focus on what's really important.