For the last five or six years, I have made a full Thanksgiving meal the Sunday before the fourth Thursday in November. You see, my hubby LOVES turkey and all ALL trimmings. He looks forward to it every year—it’s the only holiday he doesn’t grumble at. Cut to the reason for our tradition: one year my mother-in-law tried something different. She made manicotti (and one year tacos—but that may have been Christmas, I can’t remember). My dear, sweet spouse bitched a moaned for weeks and weeks afterwards. It was quite annoying! So… our tradition began. It saved my sanity as much as his scrawny neck if I had to listen to him bemoan his Thanksgiving manicotti again.

His mother has since mended her tradition bending ways (mostly because it *is* more cost effective to make the regular feed—hell, I paid less than $10 for a 20lb. turkey—I even bought two). But still I endeavor to make the meal that Sunday before. Some is to make the hubby (and in turn myself) happy. Some is just to see if I can actually pull it off. It’s tough, but I manage.

I will admit, I use it to also get two families taken care of with one holiday. We usually see the hubby’s family on the actual turkey day, and my mom and brother often come over for our Sunday pre-turkey day. This year was a little hairy, though, as the hubby is a DEVOUT Cowboys fan—has been since he was single digits. And my brother (who was born and raised in Texas, so don’t ask me why) is equally obsessed fanatic for the Redskins; both who played the noon game this past Sunday (Cowboys won in overtime BTW—woot! Tied for first in their division… can you tell the amount of testosterone in my house?!?!) There was no snarling between the men, but I worried…. And once the eating commenced all was right (I think my brother ate third-helpings and took almost as much home with him).

So just to make you a little jealous of what you missed here , what you may expect in a couple of days or just impressed I managed to make it all (started at 9 am finished at five til six when we set down to eat) I made:

* Turkey w/gravy

*mashed potatoes

*green bean casserole

*mashed sweet potatoes w/ marshmallows

*homemade cranberry sauce

*rolls

* jellied cranberries (from a can—I’m not that good)

*Jell-O w/ oranges & marshmallows

*stuffing (just plain old Stove Top—that’s all the kids will actually eat)

*homemade pumpkin pie

*Cherry cheese cake (no bake—easy peasy!)

The funny thing, Monday morning, I was looking at my little turkey nutcracker (he’s so cute) and the springy turkey doorhanger and started thinking I needed to put the decorations away. Luckily before I actually packed them up for next year, I realized it was only Monday not Friday. My kids even got a little confused. We planned a family outing to the mall and the 15yo said he couldn’t believe I was going shopping on Black Friday (I worked it many years in a row while the dh was in college—never once have I actually shopped it) then he shook his head and laughed… (and Oh yeah! we’ve got leftovers out the wazoo… I’m making turkey chili tonight…)

Hope you and yours have a wonderful, safe Thanksgiving… gobble-gobble