Thanksgiving--The Day After

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving. I know we did. After spending the beginning of the week with my parents, I came home to spend Thanksgiving with Sleek, the kids, and our friends. We had a great time. Our good friend, olives, came into town to hang with us. We had dinner with our friends, the Lester family and the getto-Dillon family.

olives arrived Wednesday after noon, and we decided what to make, made our list, and went to Kroger. The parking lot was just packed, with cars parked in parking spots that didn't actually exist. olives and I both feared that we'd have panic attacks. We also feared they'd be out of the sweet potatoes and cranberries we needed! They were fully stocked, so we got our stuff and got the hell out. We came home and spent a good 4 hours in the kitchen. I made a chocolate-bourbon pecan pie (Nov. 07 Southern Living), and a sweet-potato casserole (America's Test Kitchen). olives made the traditional Greek dish, Spanikopita. We drank some wine and listened to lots of music throughout the evening. I know Joseph Arthur was playing at one point. Also Super Furry Animals. Good stuff.




We woke up at 8 a.m. on Thanksgiving day, and hit the kitchen once again. olives got busy making the cranberry sauce and sauteed Brussel sporuts with pecans. I worked on the mashed potatoes, chick-pea gravy and broccoli. We finally got out the door at about 3 p.m.

We arrived at the Lester's, and unloaded the car, laughing about the absurd amount of food we'd made. Soon after we got inside, getto got to work carving the turkey. We had some drinks, and dug in. Everything was fantastic. Jamie had made sweet-potato casserole, so we didn't even bust in to mine. (I was more than happy to have all of mine to bring home for leftovers. Plus, the one Jamie made so good!) I was so stuffed after dinner that I had to wait a couple of hours for dessert. Molly made an apple-crisp that was just off-the-hook, so that's what I decided on. My pecan pie turned out really nice, but I think I prefer regular pecan pie to the chocolate one. I think the chocolate flavor took over the pecan-pie flavor.




We had some more wine and Molly, olives and I sat around talking. The guys played Guitar Hero, and the kids ran around playing and acting crazy. Then we played Scrabble, Jamie and olives won. Sleek and I came in second, only two points ahead of getto and Molly. By the time we rolled out, Sleek, olives and I were feeling way overstuffed. We came home and hung out for a couple hours. We complained about how full we were, yet contemplated digging in to the leftovers. We finally just had to go to bed. I was still feeling full when I woke up. Ridiculous.

Some random pics of the day: