Yesterday, I hosted Thanksgiving for the second time in my life. The first was several years ago, when all my Philly family decamped for the Columbia River Gorge. This year, needing to take Scott and his mom into the equation, we planned for a small dinner at our place on Thanksgiving, with a larger family follow up on Saturday at my cousins’ in the suburbs.

Being that I enjoy cooking, handling the bulk of the Thanksgiving meal was a pleasure for me. I’ve prepared this same meal in tandem with my parents many times and so it was really fun to take that knowledge and be the primary one to stuff and roast the turkey. Scott helped me with the actual stuffing of the bird, and I have to admit that I got a little frustrated with him when 1. He wasn’t able to anticipate my every move (the nerve!) and 2. When my plans for how to close the stuffing into the turkey cavity didn’t work out as I wanted at first. Thankfully, he was fully prepared for the fact that I was going to yell at him at least once during the day and so didn’t hold my momentary frustration against me. It helped that I also apologized a little later in the day (and made a special batch of stuffing that had no mushrooms in it, just for him).

Dinner was really lovely, with the perfect combination of chaos and order. Scott’s mom Joan chopped potatoes, later Jean spent a good half hour pushing them through the ricer and Dan did a skillful job of carving the turkey while I ran around and put the finishing touches on the veggies (roasted brussels sprouts and peas and carrots). It was really fun to have both the kids there, Derek was entertaining and personable, while three month old Juliet was totally mellow and good-natured.

Best of all, I now don’t have to cook for days, as I have plenty of leftovers.