Terri L Tindall: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It always has been.

Nicole's due date with Paige was November 20. She started talking about having Thanksgiving early because if the baby was less than one week old that she (Nicole) would not feel like participating. Well, maybe, we need to get through the summer before we start thinking about Thanksgiving.

After the groups left, I went to the States. Nicole was obsessed with Thanksgiving. "Can we plan it early?" I really did not want to think about Thanksgiving. I was seeing family and friends, fundraising, and driving 4000 miles. But, she did not ease up on the subject.

We tried to talk about a different date a couple of times after I got home, but things just kept coming up. And then, Miss Paige was born November 2. We began to plan for Thanksgiving to be on Thanksgiving.

We are very short-staffed right not and I did not see how we had time to cook a big Thanksgiving meal. Matt and I went to Tegucigalpa and did most of the shopping on November 16. That first round of shopping began to put me more in the Thanksgiving mood. I jumped up and down in the aisle of a grocery store over finding Crisco and the french fried onion rings for green bean casserole. We found almost everything on the first trip. Everything but the turkeys. Minor problem. It was two or three days later when Matt called and said he had turkeys in his hand.

In the past, I have spent pretty much three days cooking for Thanksgiving. Tuesday morning, I got one batch of bread made. Two kids had appointments in Tegucigalpa. I left at 1:30 and got back at 7:00. I did not get anything else toward Thanksgiving done that day.

Wednesday I worked from 7:00-2:00. I did use that time to have the kids chop celery and onions and grate the cheese.

Cindy had declared for days that she was not peeling potatoes this year. She grabbed a cheese grater and the cheese and began grating with a fury. Later in the afternoon, when the potatoes arrived, she grabbed a knife and began peeling potatoes, too. I am not sure what all those declarations were about.

I got back to my house a little after 2:00. I was thinking there is no way this is going to happen by tomorrow. I got two more batches of bread made and set aside to rise. I was really starting to energize as I thought about the preparations and the meal with the kids, employees, and friends.

At 3:00, Haley came to help. She was wearing her apron and had the smallest little rolling pin I have ever seen. She said, " I brought my own rolling pin to help you, Grammy."

When it came time to use the rolling pin, she said, " you might have to help me by using your big rolling pin." She did a pretty good job.

Haley liked rolling the dough, but she especially liked shaping the dough to go inside the pan.

Haley is an early-to-bed-early-to-rise type of girl. She was asleep by 7:30. We had done a lot. But, there was more to do than I could possibly get done. For the first time for Thanksgiving, and maybe for the first time in my life, I began to decrease the work load. I xed off the last batch of bread, one batch of brownies and the pecan pie. The pecan pie was for Matt, Nicole and I. I let the brownies that were in the oven finish baking, I did the Bisquick biscuits for the dressing and washed the dishes. I then joined Haley.

Since last Thanksgiving, Haley has talked about painting the turkey. Most people baste the turkey, not Haley. She paints the turkey. I explained to her that she could only paint one turkey this year because the first one was going to be "painted" long before she got up. I got up at 2:30 and had the turkey going by 3:00. I went back to bed for a couple of hours.

I got up before Haley. I was getting ready to jump in the shower and I heard her singing. I went in to ask her if she was ready to start cooking again. She was. We made up a song about Grammy and Haley's kitchen and a mess mess here and a mess mess there. She was laughing so hard.

We prepared the dressing and got it in the oven. Then it was time to paint the second turkey.

We misplaced our paintbrush so we had to use a paper towel.

Nicole had kids in and out of her house making desserts. When all the other kids were with Nicole, so was Haley. She did not want to share Mommy. I did not like that Nicole was not down in the house with me this year, but that is the way it had to be. Part of the time, I was by myself. On Thanksgiving, I did not like that at all. Matt came down and helped carry the big pans and several other things. He did fun jobs, like open all the cans.

We had my house smelling so good.

For the first time, I had the food ready by 2:00. I have been so late every year. Everyone has come to expect that and none of our guests were here when I was ready to serve. We waited til about 2:45.