mellowThanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It's all about family and friends, lots of yakking, lots of munching, lots of just plain sharing.
It's insane and I love it. Chaos is when lots of people arrive around 2pm with plates of food and bags of munchies - and they all try to fit in the kitchen at the same time - giving hugs and chatting. Auntie Nobuko arrives with her fabulous fried won ton and pans of finger jello. Auntie Oscar brings teriyaki flank steak and all kinds of japanese pickles. Patty brings fruit salad and her scrumptious chili. And so it goes *g*
Kyle's been checking out the stuff on the dining room table, the coffee table in the living room and the long table in the family room. He looks around to see if anybody's watching and grabs a handful of M'n'M's from the family room table. Then goes over to the dining room table to get some chips. Oh!... and there are grapes on the coffee table. What he really wants to do is go to the park, but everybody's too busy to take him until after first feeding. Silly boy =)
I got up at 8:30 or so to start my final preparations for the day. Karen's been up for hours - 2nd turkey goes in at 6am. First turkey had been done the day before. Not a whole lot left to do - just had to finish the veggies for the veggie platter, boil yams, slice up salami & cheese and make spanakopitas.
Got to Karen's house around 12:15 and was greeted with a huge hug from Kyle. Lots of hugs from cousins who arrived early and therefore were put to work. Aaron was slicing one turkey and Kenneth was slicing the char siu. Aly's mom ended up stir frying the chinese broccoli and asparagus. Byron, Aly and Jennifer were putting out veggies, dips and chips and other munchies. Jennifer ended up dishing out the steamed rice and learned the trick of wetting down the rice paddle and shaping the rice into a smooth round mound *g*
This year's count was 38 people. It was good - some people I only see at Thanksgiving or as this year has been, at funerals *sigh* Much catching up with what people are doing. It's good to watch bonds being built among my young cousins. Loved watching Kyle and Brendan play together, it's too bad that they don't live closer - Kyle is about 10 days older than Brendan. (It was supposed to be the other way around, but Kyle showed up 4 weeks early) It's amazing to watch the amount of energy that two 3 year olds can expend in one day. Those two were chasing each other from one end of the house to the other. Again and again and again. Oy *g* I think they were playing spiderman and green goblin.
Got lots of snuggles with Alani sweetums. Showed a couple of my cousins a bit of Kingdom Hearts *weg* We've set July 12, 2003 as the date of our next family reunion. Karen was updating family tree information. She's doing flash cards for people who are having trouble keeping track of how we're all related. Byron and Aaron really need them *g*
Managed to get everything cleaned up and all the food dealt with by 11pm. Last guests departed around 11:30pm. Pretty good for an evening that didn't include a poker game. (poker games between cousins can last until 7am the next day)
Time to go to bed. Feet are tired (where's that wonderful tub from watercourse way when you need one?). Brain dead. I am content.
