Feeding the birds

I fed the pig birds today. That was my accomplishment. We call them pig birds because as soon as we put the bird feed out, it’s gone. And yet, sometimes I just want to watch the birds eat while I drink my coffee. It reminds me of sweet times with my Grandma growing up and it reminds me not to worry.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” Luke 6:25-27

We have been the birds this week. Something bad happened in our lives and my family has been the birds. And my friends have been the hands and feet of Jesus. We have not worried about what we will eat or drink because our friends have taken care of it.

If you’ve never dealt with a loss that rocked your whole world, you can’t know how much of a blessing it is not to have to worry about what you will eat. Not to have to decide between feeding your kids pizza every night or standing up in the kitchen with your body protesting your every move and cooking anyways. Dinner is such a simple thing until nothing is simple.

So I just wanted to take a moment and say thank you to everyone that has fed us this week and signed up to feed us next. It may seem like a simple, small thing to you, but it is a huge blessing and great encouragement to this mama’s heart. Every bit of energy I don’t have to devote to feeding these people I love best is energy that can go to physical healing. It is a great gift to me and to them because they need me to heal.

Thank you for letting us just be birds for a little bit. Thank you for caring for us in a tangible way. Thank you for loving us well.

Waste not, Want not Turkey gravy recipe

My kids love gravy. Well, my kids ask for gravy if it isn’t made, but if it is made they don’t always notice it. But they definitely wanted it with Thanksgiving dinner.

I found a pretty basic recipe on thekitchen.com to try and it turned out well. It called for pan drippings and juices, as did my Grandma’s dressing recipe so I got a 20 lb turkey so I’d have enough to do both. I wound up with more than enough.

This is a very simple recipe, quick and easy to cook in the 10-15 minutes before serving dinner and it’s delicious on dressing, turkey and mashed potatoes. Bonus, it’s dairy free.

Easy Turkey Gravy

Ingredients:

• Pan drippings (1/4 cup fat and 1 cup liquid)
• 1 to 2 cups water or broth (or more juices from pan)
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• Salt, pepper and thyme to taste

Directions:

1. Remove pan drippings, strain through fine mesh sieve and refrigerate long enough for fat to separate.
2. Skim 1/4 cup fat from the top of the pan drippings.
3. Place the fat in a sauce pan on medium high heat with the flour, whisk and cook for a few minutes until bubbly.
4. Add pan drippings and liquid slowly, whisking until it reaches the desired thickness.
5. Enjoy and repeat.

Note: you can refrigerate and reheat later on low, whisking occasionally to prevent it from sticking to the pan. I reheated it a couple days later to finish off the leftover mashed potatoes and dressing 🙂

Barbecue Chicken

When I was a kid, one of my favorite meals my mom would make was BBQ chicken with mashed potatoes. I loved to make a depression in the potatoes and spoon the BBQ sauce into the potatoes. Honestly, I liked the potatoes better than the chicken. And I still do.

My mom made that meal a lot because my dad really liked it. She had it down to an art, knowing how much to pour for it to look right then tasting to make sure the flavor was right. This made the dish exceptional, but also exceptionally hard to learn if you’re not that type of chef. Which I’m not.

I’ve made this chicken several times with my mom helping me because I’m just not the kind of chef that pours a little of this and a little of that. I need measurements. I’m very precise in my cooking. It’s a science for me, an art for my mom.

So when I made Brunswick Stew, I got really excited. A lot of the ingredients in the sauce were similar to my mom’s BBQ chicken recipe and I loved the way the BBQ sauce tasted. I had this idea at the back of my head that it would make a great BBQ chicken recipe. I kept thinking about it periodically but never tried it. Until last week. I am happy to report that the sauce is great on mashed potatoes and the BBQ chicken tastes good as well.

It was a hit with everyone but Rory. She loved the BBQ sauce on her mashed potatoes, but thought the chicken was a little too spicy. Go figure. This chicken is great with green beans, mashed potatoes and creamed corn, but I’m sure it would be good with any veggies. Just don’t forget the potatoes. Trust me. I hope your family loves it as much as mine did.

BBQ Chicken

Ingredients:

• 4 tbsp butter
• 1 3/4 cups ketchup
• 1/4 cup mustard
• 1/4 cup white vinegar
• 1/2 tbsp chopped garlic
• 1 tsp ground cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
• 2 tbsp worstershire sauce
• 1 tbsp tobacco sauce
• 1/2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 cup hot water (more if needed)
• 5-6 boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into pieces

Directions:

1. Melt 4 tbsp butter in saucepan.
2. Add ketchup, mustard and vinegar. Blend until smooth.
3. Add chopped garlic, black pepper, crushed red pepper, worstershire sauce, tobasco sauce, and fresh lemon juice. Blend until smooth.
4. Put about 1/2 cup hot water in ketchup bottle to get the rest of the ketchup off (this recipe uses a 28 ounce bottle of organic ketchup), shake and pour into sauce.
5. Cook 10 minutes.
6. Add chicken pieces and bring to a boil. Put top on and reduce to medium (or 3 or 4, whatever level your stove needs to be at to maintain a simmer).
7. Simmer covered, stirring occasionally, for 20-30 minutes until chicken is fully cooked. Then serve hot or simmer until you’re ready to serve. The longer you cook the chicken in the sauce, the better it tastes.
8. Enjoy and repeat often.

Beef Stroganoff recipe

Eddie has always liked beef stroganoff. Before we married, he used to make it. I made it from scratch once, but none of the kids really liked it, which is funny because they love the hamburger helper boxed stuff.

A couple days ago, Eddie casually mentioned that he’d like me to make beef stroganoff. He rarely makes requests and when he does I try my best cuz I love him.

He told me how he used to make his beef stroganoff and I was unable to find a recipe that used the same ingredients, so I found the closest recipe to the recipe he described and modified it to be closer to his recipe.

I served it with steamed broccoli, cauliflower and carrots with some cheese on top. This beef stroganoff wound up pretty close to the taste of the boxed version with a lot less junk and everyone seemed to like it so I’ll definitely be making it again soon.

Beef StroganoffIngredients:

• 1.5 lbs stew meat
• 8 ounces baby bella sliced fresh mushrooms
• 2 medium onions, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup butter (4 tbsp)
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1.5 tsp beef bouillon granules
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tsp Worstershire sauce
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 12 ounces egg noodles, cooked according to package instructions
• 1 block cream cheese, softened.

Directions:

1. Cook mushrooms, onions and garlic in butter on medium heat until onions are tender, then remove from pan.
2. Cook beef in the same skillet until browned. Stir in 1 cup water, 1 tsp bouillon granules, the salt and the Worstershire sauce. Heat to boiling, reduce heat, cover and simmer 15 minutes.
3. Stir remaining 1/2 cup water, 1/2 tsp bouillon granules, and flour together and add to beef mixture. Add onion mixture. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly and boil 1 minute, continuing to stir. Stir in cream cheese, heat until hot, but do not boil.
4. Add cooked noodles to Stroganoff and stir. Reduce temp to low, cover and continue to cook until ready to serve.
5. Enjoy and repeat.

Note: this is really good warmed up the next day, too. If you’re a throw back like me who doesn’t have a microwave by choice, you just pop it in a saucepan with a bit of heavy cream and cook on medium, stirring frequently until it’s warmed.

Zucchini Muffin Recipe (dairy free)

‘Tis the season for get togethers — work parties, Sunday school parties, family reunions,Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas parties, Christmas dinners. . . The list goes on and on. One of the things many of these occasions have in common is everyone is expected to bring a dish. Potlucks abound and what do you bring? 

I don’t know about you, but with the exception of the Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations that are actually held at my home, most of my events are pretty far away geographically — anywhere from 1.5-2.5 hours of driving. That adds an extra dynamic of difficulty because if you are bringing a hot dish, you either have to keep it hot en route or heat it when you get there, which isn’t always an option. So what do you do?

We had one of those events this weekend. I initially considered getting there super early and hoping there was room to reheat in the oven, but then I went through my trusty recipe box and found an old favorite that doesn’t need reheating, travels well, tastes delicious and has veggies in it — zucchini bread muffins. Here is my recipe in case you ever find yourself in need of it:

Zucchini Bread Muffins

Ingredients: 

• 3 zucchini, shredded
• 3 large eggs
• 3/4 cups olive oil
• 2 tsp vanilla 
• 1.5 cup sugar
• 2.5 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• Paper baking cups 

Directions:

1. Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350. 
2. Put paper baking cups in muffin tins or grease with butter. 
3. Whisk eggs in large bowl. 
4. Add oil, vanilla and sugar and whisk again. 
5. Add zucchini and stir. 
6. In medium bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, baking powder, salt and baking soda. 
7. Add dry ingredients to wet and mix until just blended. 
8. Spoon into muffin tins. 
9. Cook muffins 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. 
10. Enjoy and repeat. 

The original recipe came from Emeril Legasse, but as is typical for me, I changed it to better suit me. I use more zucchini, and don’t use the nutmeg, lemon zest or walnuts. This recipe usually makes 18 muffins plus a small loaf (as in 3″ x 2″ x 2″ pan) or 21 muffins. Bonus, if it does not get consumed at the event, this dish is awesome as breakfast or a snack or a tea party the next couple of days (can you tell I mom girls?). . . 

The Grown-up Appetizer (gluten free)

They say some people are in your life for a reason, some for a season and some forever. I say some are in your life for a recipe, but I guess that’s just a foodie version of a reason.

There are some people I thought would be in my life forever who ended up just being in my life for a recipe or two or a season of recipes. It hurt when they left my life, but I’m glad something good came out of the relationship, not just the pain that comes when they leave. This recipe is one of “those recipes”, one reason why I’m glad for someone’s presence in my life, short lived though it was.

When I was a child, my mom’s appetizers were celery with cheese whiz, which tastes good, but really isn’t very good for you. This recipe is like the grown up, healthier version of that.

The Grown-up Appetizer

Ingredients:

• Jumbo black olives or celery stalks (or both)
• 1 block cream cheese, softened
• 1 tub Gorgonzola

Directions:

1. Combine softened cream cheese with Gorgonzola.
2. Stuff into olives or celery (or both).
3. Enjoy and repeat.

Note: 1 block of cream cheese and 1 tub of Gorgonzola is enough to stuff 2 cans of jumbo olives and 2 bunches of celery hearts.

Recipe credit goes to JRM and JDM.

Also note: it is entirely possible to make 2 batches of this and eat it without taking photos. This time, the celery was finished first, thus the photo of olives only 😉

Squash Casserole recipe

I love squash casserole. That cheesy, crackery, squashy yumminess — I could eat it all year round. My mother used to make it around thanksgiving and I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love it. 

When I got older and started having kids, I started making squash casserole for my kids. When I first started making it, I used cream of chicken soup in it because that’s how my mom always made it. 

Somewhere along my health and foodie journey, I decided that I needed to make a conscious effort to avoid soy ingredients in my food as much as possible. I started reading all the ingredients and finding alternative ways to make the food that I loved without including soy or soy byproducts in it, which meant I needed to find a new way to make squash casserole. 

I don’t know where I found this recipe, but I’ve been making squash casserole with it for several years now and it’s always well received. 

This year, I decided to use organic crackers instead of Ritz crackers. I found an 8.5 ounce box of organic round crackers, did the math and figured out that it was about 2.5 sleeves of crackers so when it was time to make the squash casserole, I opened the crackers and made 3 piles. The first 2 piles got 2 crackers each time and the 3rd got 1, making 2 piles that were the equivalent of a pack of crackers and a 3rd pile that was the equivalent of half a pack. 

This year, Izzy and I made squash casserole the day before we had our thanksgiving dinner up to the point of placing the topping on it and baking it. I put it in the fridge overnight with the topping ingredients measured out in Tupperware containers. The next day, I took it out about an hour before cooking it to let it come closer to room temp before I put it in the oven. I made the topping, put it on and baked it as usual. Izzy doesn’t usually like squash casserole, but something about helping to make it made her want to give it another try and this year she loved it. I hope your family loves it, too. 

Squash Casserole recipe 

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs squash (about 5-6 medium squashes)
• Large onion, diced 
• 1 sleeve ritz crackers (or equivalent, see above), split in half
• 1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded and split in half
• 2 eggs 
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup butter melted and split in half (if making the night before you can melt half a stick at a time like we did)
• Salt and pepper to taste 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 (unless making the night before you bake it)
2. Lightly steam squash and onions (steam for 5 minutes). Drain and set aside to cool. 
3. In medium bowl, combine crackers and cheese. If making and baking same day, combine all at once, if making the day before baking, combine half when you make it and reserve the other half until the next day so your topping doesn’t get soggy overnight). 
4. In a large bowl, combine drained squash and onions with 1/2 cracker and cheese mix. 
5. In a small bowl, whisk egg and milk together then add to squash mixture. 
6. Melt 1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick) and add to squash mix, season with salt and pepper and fold together gently. 
7. Spread squash mix in 9 x 13 dish, top with remaining cracker and cheese mix and pour remaining 1/4 cup of melted butter on top.
8. Bake 25 minutes at 400. 
9. Enjoy and repeat. 

The Mechanics of and Lessons Learned by a Thanksgiving Hosting Newbie. . .

This year was my first time hosting Thanksgiving. I typically do a lot of cooking from scratch, but not anywhere near the level of Thanksgiving dinner. 

We decided to have our Thanksgiving dinner Wednesday night because my sister Jessica had to work Thursday night. My sister Angelica, my parents and my BIL, nieces, nephew and BIL’s mother were all invited, but the only ones I knew for sure were coming were my sisters. 

I decided to make turkey, cranberry sauce, green beans, squash casserole, sweet potato soufflé, mashed potatoes, and gravy. Jessica said she would make Grandma’s dressing and a pie and Angelica was going to bring another pie. 

I went to the grocery store Monday night with my 2 youngest to get all the ingredients. I realized I didn’t have a sweet potato soufflé recipe when I was at the store so I found one on the internet that I liked the ingredients of and found the ingredients I needed. Of course, as soon as I got home I realized I needed more butter. . . Because practically everything had butter in it. 

Tuesday, I started thawing the turkey in the sink as soon as I woke up. I discovered the tub plug from the bathroom fit in the sink, so I cleaned out the sink and started the process of thawing with a sink full of cold water and a turkey. I put a 30 minute timer on my phone and changed out the water and flipped over the turkey whenever the timer went off. By the time it was time to go to bed, it was almost thawed enough to get the 2 gravy packets and the giblets out. I totally forgot about the neck and left it in. 

In between flipping the turkey and changing out the water on Tuesday, I put the butter on the counter to soften because I knew we were going to need a lot of softened butter. I made the appetizers. Then I made cornbread for the dressing with Evie’s help. I made squash casserole with Izzy’s help. I baked the sweet potatoes then let Addy take over the sweet potato soufflé. I taught Rory how to snap the ends off green beans and got them cooking and fried the rest of the bacon. Jessica made her pie. We made the cranberry sauce. Finally, Jessica and I peeled and chopped potatoes and put them in water. 

Overnight, the potatoes, squash casserole, sweet potato soufflé and giblets were refrigerated and the green beans warmed in the pressure cooker.  I put the turkey in the oven on 200 before I went to bed and by the time I woke up in the morning, it was done. 

When I got up in the morning, I took the turkey out of the oven and let it cool a bit while I drank my coffee. I set out some more butter to soften. Then I removed the turkey from the pan and strained the pan drippings into a glass measuring cup with a top. I put it in the fridge to separate so I could make the gravy with it later. I carved the turkey and put it on platters in the fridge. Then I crumbled the cornbread and my sister and I crumbled the stale bread into a gigantic bowl. She chopped the dressing veggies while I boiled the giblets to make giblet broth for the dressing then I melted the butter and sautéed the dressing veggies. We let the sautéed veggies and the giblet broth cool for a while then we combined that with the cornbread and stale bread crumbles to make the dressing and put it in the pan. 

This was about the time when I found out my parents were still in Kentucky and my BIL, nieces and nephew and BIL’s mom would not be coming. I wasn’t really surprised as much as sad, but I’d already had one friend offer to come and had accepted and I started looking for other people to come and just kept cooking. 

We were going to eat at 6:00 so around 4:00 Jessica took the potatoes and casseroles out of the fridge. I put the topping on the squash casserole and at 4:30, I turned the oven on 400. At 4:45, I put the dressing in and set the timer for 20 minutes. When that went off, I put the sweet potato soufflé in the oven and started another 20 minute timer. When that went off I put the squash casserole in and set another timer. 

Somewhere around here, I found out one of my friends hit a deer en route and would be late. 

I put a pot of water on the stove to boil for the potatoes. When it boiled, I added the potatoes, splashed some boiling water on my eyeball, and put a 10 minute timer on for the potatoes. Jessica mashed the potatoes while I made the gravy and everything was ready at about the same time. Everything except the dressing was ready about the same time, the dressing took about 20 minutes longer than I expected, but that’s ok. Everything was still warm and yummy when it was done. 

Everyone loved the food. The company was awesome and refreshing and can I say how nice it was to be done cooking and sit and relax after 2 days of it?

So I am no longer a thanksgiving hosting virgin. I finally know exactly what goes into preparing a thanksgiving dinner and I have a newfound respect and appreciation for everyone who has ever prepared thanksgiving dinner for me. 

I learned a few things that I’d like to make sure I remember for next year: 

• I love how efficiently I worked and I’m surprised I didn’t get confused or distracted and mess something up. I’m crediting that to planning ahead of time and having a list of what I was going to make. I think looking at that every so often kept me on track. It’s the little things 😉
• I also love that I had the forethought to soften butter from the beginning because so many of the recipes needed softened butter and I did not have time to wait for butter to soften when I got to the next recipe. 
• I made everything I could the night before and put the casserole recipes in sandwich bags on top of the casserole dish in the fridge so the recipe wouldn’t get wet or lost and I would know what to do when it came time to bake the next day. The baggies were Jessica’s idea. She’s so smart. 
• I let each of the kids help with at least one dish from start to finish. The kids loved it, they were proud to help, and it cut down on them coming in and out of the kitchen to offer help, knowing that they were each going to help with one dish and I’d call them when it was their turn. 
• I did dishes all day long both days . I have a tiny kitchen and with half of the sink full of turkey for day 1, I had to keep doing the dishes so I had room to put the dirty dishes and had bowls to use for the next dish. 

Things I would do differently:

• I loved all my recipes, so I won’t be changing any, but next year I’ll be making some sweet potato soufflé with pecans and some without so my bestie can try it. 
• Plan ahead for easy food for us to eat during the 2 days of cooking. It was too easy to forget to eat and I don’t think as well or have as much patience when I’m hangry. And my kids kept coming in the kitchen saying they were hungry so I kept having to stop cooking to figure out what to feed them. 
• Either add less liquid to the dressing or start baking it earlier or both. 
• More olives for appetizers. That is the only thing we ran out of that night, the olive appetizers. 
• Maybe paper plates and definitely paper towels and plastic cups with sharpies to write names on the cups. We don’t use them on a regular basis but that would have made the night just a bit easier. 
• Safety goggles when I pour the potatoes in the water. Kidding. Maybe. That boiling water hurt. 
• Music. I think playing music while cooking would have been a good idea but I didn’t really think about it at the time. 
• Pictures. I cooked all these great dishes and I’ve been sharing the recipes, but I took no pictures. I wish I had taken pictures of the food and pictures of each kid with the dish they helped make and pictures of them cooking and pictures of all of us together, eating it. Next year, I will take more pictures. 

All things considered, I think the cooking and hosting was a fantastic experience that my kids and I all enjoyed and learned something from and I’m really looking forward to hosting again next year. And maybe again at Christmas. Somehow the activity and chaos made the holiday pass a little quicker and gave me less time to think of what was missing. It kept me in the present and I think I needed that. 

Sweet Potato Soufflé with Pecan Topping

My mom has always loved sweet potato soufflé. There’s a place near where my Grandma lived that my dad loved to eat at that made a sweet potato souffle with a pecan topping that she loved. They also have a great mac n cheese that I loved. Actually, I haven’t eaten anything from there that I didn’t like so if you’re ever in Tucker, GA, check out Matthew’s Cafeteria. Your taste buds will thank you. 

This year was my first time hosting Thanksgiving dinner so I wanted to make something I knew my mom liked, sweet potato soufflé. It had been a long time since I’d made sweet potato soufflé and I didn’t have my last recipe I used and liked saved in my phone or my recipe box so I had to find a new one. I found this gem, liked the ingredients and decided to try it. My sister laughed and said she hoped Trisha knew how to cook as well as she sings, but she ended up loving the dish even though she’s never liked sweet potato soufflé. Well played, Trisha, well played. 

This is a new family favorite and will be our go to recipe from now on. It’s like sweet potato pie with the crust on top, just the right amount of crunchy, nutty yumminess to compliment the sweet potatoes. Bonus, it’s fairly easy to make. I baked the potatoes, but my 13 year old did the rest of this dish by herself and she was so proud of it (and I am pretty proud of her). She can’t wait to make it again! This dish is also easy to make the night before. The topping does not get soggy if you put it on and refrigerate the night before and it’s a very flexible recipe. If you decide to cook it at 400 because everything else needs to be cooked at 400, you just watch it  until the brown sugar melts on top and it turns out beautifully. That’s what we did 🙂

Next year, we will be making this with and without nuts, though. Apparently, it’s not nice to offer pecan crusted sweet potato soufflé to a friend with a nut allergy. Sorry, Trista. Love you. 

Trisha Yearwood’s Sweet Potato Souffle 

Soufflé Ingredients: 

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter at room temp
• 5 medium sweet potatoes (about 3 lb)
• 2 large eggs 
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1.5 tsp vanilla extract 
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 pinch salt

Topping ingredients:

• 1 cup finely chopped pecans
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup AP flour
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350. 
2. Grease 2.5 quart (or 3 quart, 9×13 Casserole dish if you don’t have a 2.5 quart, that’s what we used) baking dish with butter and set aside. 
3. Poke sweet potatoes with fork, bake on foil lined baking sheet until soft (check after an hour and add more time if necessary). 
4. Cool until you can safely handle them, then peel and place flesh in large mixing bowl and mash until smooth. 
5. Add remaining soufflé ingredients, mix well with electric mixer and pour into buttered baking dish. 
6. Stir together topping ingredients and spoon over soufflé, making an even layer. 
7. Bake until slightly browned and brown sugar melts, about 40 minutes. 
8. Let sit 5 minutes before serving. 
9. Enjoy and repeat. 

Missing Thanksgivings Past

I’ve always loved Thanksgiving. For me, it’s always been a more relaxed, more honest holiday. Things always went wrong in the execution of the day, but it was ok because the whole point of the day was to enjoy time with my family and eat good food and nothing ever happened bad enough to prevent us from enjoying all the time or all the food. We were usually late, sometimes some of the food wasn’t perfect, but Thanksgiving just shrugged its shoulders at the parts that weren’t ideal, kept on going and always ended up being a good day despite the bits of bad mixed in. The good was more than enough to redeem the day. 

When I was a child, Thanksgiving was Grandma’s day. My parents, my 3 sisters and I would pile into our van and drive 45 minutes to Grandma’s house and enjoy good food and fellowship with my Grandma, the Bradleys if we got there early enough and the Thorntons if they were stateside. 

There was a table in the formal dining room and a table in the kitchen and one would be the adult table and the other would be the kids table and sometimes Uncle David would sit with us kids just because he wanted to <3. We would all eat and talk and eat some more. We didn’t often see our aunts and uncles and cousins so it was a special time for us to catch up. I miss it. 

I usually ate so much that the day ended with a vow to never eat again and a long walk to make room for a turkey sandwich later. I miss those days and I miss my Grandma. 

When my grandma got sick and could no longer eat, we stopped having Thanksgiving there and we started having Thanksgiving with my sister and her kids. Usually, she would host. 

Since we got married in 2013, we have done Thanksgiving with my family and then with Eddie’s family later that day and then with Eddie’s Granny on Saturday. It was hectic and crazy at times, but I miss it. 

After my grandma died in 2014, my parents hosted for a few years. Last year, Joanna hosted. Mom and dad brought the turkey. They were late. By the time they arrived, we had already eaten and were just hanging out, enjoying the time together. Parts of it was frustrating and crazy, but it was good anyways and I miss that day and my beautiful sister. 

Today, I’m missing Thanksgivings past, not because they were perfect but because they weren’t missing anyone. I miss the certainty. We knew where we were going and what we were doing and who was bringing what. I miss the knowing what to expect. This year is like when Grandma got sick, everyone deciding will we still get together or will we fall apart. 

There was a part of me that didn’t want to have Thanksgiving at all this year because there’s no substitute for the people who can no longer be in it, but I also felt that if I didn’t do Thanksgiving with my family this year that it would be harder to start it up again and maybe we just wouldn’t do thanksgiving as a family anymore and that wasn’t an option I wanted to consider. Well, it was an option I very much wanted to consider because it sounded a lot easier and less painful, but it wasn’t an option I wanted to do. 

I hate the uncertainty and the insecurity and the fact that I was tempted to not do anything. I hate the part of me that didn’t want to do Thanksgiving with my family at all, but I understand it. It wouldn’t be the same without Joanna. It still hadn’t recovered from losing Grandma. It never got to meet Maggie. What once was such a family filled time is missing too much of the family. I was tempted to skip it, but decided not to give into temptation. I wanted to see my family even if it would hurt and would mean missing the ones who aren’t here and being sad. 

So I stepped into some very big shoes, and decided to host Thanksgiving at my house. I invited my parents and my sisters and my brother in law and nieces and nephews and my BIL’s mom. I started cooking and cleaning the day before and the day of, I found out that my parents and my brother in law and my nieces and nephew and my BIL’s mom would not be coming. 

I was immediately reminded of the story Jesus told:

“Then He said to him, “A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’ And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’ Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.’ ” ‭‭Luke‬ ‭14:16-24‬ ‭‬‬

And I had the compulsion to drive around and find someone to eat with us. I had the compulsion, but not the time. I also knew that my husband would probably not approve of that idea. So instead, I invited some friends and a neighbor and kept preparing dinner. 

We ended up having almost as many people as we had invited originally, friends who are like the family I got to choose to me. The food was good, but the dressing took longer to bake than I expected so dinner was a little late, most of my family didn’t show, one of our friends hit a deer en route and her daughter didn’t feel well so they didn’t get to stay long, but at the end of the night our bellies and our dishwasher were full and so were our hearts. 

I still missed my Grandma, my sister and my daughter. The day was full of craziness and stress and last minute issues. But Thanksgiving was still full of good food and good company and there was more than enough good to redeem the day. It was not the perfect day by far, but it’s still my favorite holiday. 

This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful that Thanksgiving is as resilient as ever. It has grown up a bit with me and its issues are bigger, but it’s still full of enough good to outweigh the bad, regardless of who it is missing. 

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with the people who were able to be with you. We all have so much to be thankful for and while thankfulness can coexist with grief, the one you focus on determines whether your day is happy or sad. May your bellies and hearts be full and may your day have more than enough good to redeem the bad.