For years, I have joked that one of my main goals in life is to never host Thanksgiving dinner. But thanks to Covid, this goal (like so many others) has been smashed to bits. Rather than drive back to the Midwest for Thanksgiving, we stayed home this year and did our part to reduce the spread of this awful virus. And so I hosted Thanksgiving dinner.
Because it was just us, the kids got to set the menu. We all agreed we don't really even like turkey, so we opted instead for ham baked in honey, brown sugar, and pineapple, plus a bunch of the kids' favorite sides, including corn casserole, sweet potatoes, cheesy potatoes, pumpkin bread, and green beans...all created by yours truly with love (and a little anxiety).
Me and my turkeys.
Thanksgiving selfie.
And even though we were alone, we weren't isolated. Once again, our amazing Golden community came up with a way for everyone to feel connected. We each got assigned another person to write a turkey note for. A turkey note, I learned, is a short, silly, personalized note or poem that each person gets to read aloud during Thanksgiving dinner. So we all came up with funny notes and delivered them to each other's houses. The kids and I attached little bags of sweet treats to the notes we wrote for our recipients. And our own turkey notes were accompanied by doughnuts, sparkling cider...Chris even got a mini bottle of bourbon!
Danny's turkey note was from his buddy Dalton.
Dylan's turkey note for Jill came with a colorful hand-turkey sketch.
Chris showing off his bourbon (we've only been here a year and they already know him so well)!
Aaron reading his turkey note from Hunter.
Turkey toast.
The only thing to do after stuffing yourself with Thanksgiving dinner is to cuddle up for the first Christmas movie of the season: Elf!
The day after Thanksgiving, we drove up to Frasier to go tubing. And tubing down the side of a mountain is not for the faint of heart. I went down once and decided I wasn't in the mood to throw up that day. So Pepper and I hung out at the bottom on level ground. I handed out snacks. She ate the snow.
The kids, on the other hand, couldn't get enough. Chris even took the boys down one run that had a jump at the bottom. Jill didn't shy away from it either (although she did pull her hat down over her face every time so she couldn't see how fast she was going).
Tubing turkeys.
Brave boys.
Brave girl.
Maybe not Christmas-card worthy...
Looking like a real mountain dog.
Next year, hopefully things will be back to normal and we will be able to spend the holiday with family. But for now, we're grateful for health, home, and each other (including the pup).
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