As much fun as I’ve had going to my brother’s house for Thanksgiving the last couple of years, I am really glad we’re just making the 30 minute drive to my mom’s house tomorrow. My daughter is crabby enough driving around town, I don’t need to add a 5 hour drive to our often chaotic life. Even better, we don’t have to pack any overnight items. Packing for four children and loading it into a compact van is quite the challenge.
To make my Thanksgiving even more stress free, I’ve been given easy assignments – rolls, salad, and cranberry sauce. My salads are often complicated, but I’m making a simple one with a bag of spring mix, sliced pears, Gorgonzola, glazed pecans, and a homemade balsamic vinaigrette. OK, so that looks complicated after I wrote it out, but it’s really not compared to others I make.
I love to make homemade cranberry sauce. After trying it once, I could hardly stand to even look at canned cranberry sauce anymore. I joked with a friend last night that I try to carve lines into the homemade stuff. I make two kinds – jellied and another batch with whole cranberries in it.
I’m not making rolls from scratch. Maybe I’ll feel that ambitious next year. For now, I’m popping some Rhodes rolls in the oven. Tonight I’ll spend the evening making the cranberry sauce since it keeps well and I’ll make the salad last minute. In the morning, I’ll bake the rolls while I watch a Christmas movie with the kids, then we’ll head over to Grandma’s house.
We’re going to make a gratitude game. Instead of just going around the table to say what we’re grateful for, we’re going to write down our answers and have everyone guess who wrote what – first a serious answer and then a joke answer. Our favorite game is “Loaded Questions”, so it’s based on that. Someone asks a question and guesses who wrote which answers. It is a crack-up with family!
I hope all of you out there have a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving. I better get to work on dinner and the cranberry sauce.
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