Since this was your first Thanksgiving, I thought I would give you a little snapshot of what it was like. First of all, you slept through most of it, which your Mom and I are thankful that you sleep so much, but we do, at times, feel a little spoiled because you always seem to cry for a reason. Throughout most of the event, you were sound asleep and when you were awake, you were bouncing from arm to arm and behaving quite nicely. I hope it’s a sign for things to come.
Grandpa and Grandma Hogg are in England, so we had Thanksgiving here at the Hoggcienda. Megan, Fargo and Nico were here for the day and Sarah and Captain Ron rolled over for desert and drinks. We had quite the feast– the first course were Bacon Wrapped Scallops and a Roasted Beet and Goat Cheese Salad with a Cheese Plate. The main course was a Pre-Brined Turkey with the Smith family recipe Stuffing. The sides were Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans with Almonds, Sweet Potato Casserole and three different types of cranberry sauce, including the old must-have– jellied cranberry sauce from the can. Mmmmmm Delicious! Desert was freshly made Pumpkin Pie and Cherry Pie with homemade Whipped Cream– again, Delicious!
Papa was so full that I actually got sick later in the evening– it was really too much sugar for one day for me, so i got quite ill, but I felt much better. Sometimes you just have to make the call and puke and rally. I see you do that every couple of days– and believe me, I get it! 😉
It was really one of the best Thanksgivings I have had from about as long as I can remember– good food, taking it easy and having a couple of drinks. No family drama and good times for all– and the turkey was one of the best I have made ever. 17lbs of pure goodness–I think from now on I will always go for a 20lb bird– there is never enough leftovers! I would love to live off of the famous Smith family Turkey sandwiches… You take a 2 pieces of White Trash Bread (read:Wonder Bread), lather them liberally with mayo, heat up some turkey pieces (to take the edge off) with a generous amount of stuffing, stack it liberally on the bread– add salt and a couple of cranberry slices— wholla– delightful.
The other awesome leftover is to take the some turkey pieces and fry in butter, margarine until hot, add leftover Mashed Potatoes and form into pancake like shapes, scrape the taters every couple of minutes, the potatoes will brown beautifully, keep stirring until its a lite brown crispy goodness, add some left over dinner roles and wholla– the Hogg take on bubble and squeak.
Fargo did an amazing job with the old fashioned’s– we knocked back a 1/5 of Fremont Whiskey and half of a fifth of Crown Royal, which no doubt was the chief reason for my total sickness. That much sugar would be enough to kill a small donkey– but I charged on. Cooking was intense, but it was such a pleasure to make such a nice meal– small groups are what it is all about these days. I think anymore people for dinner would have made it that much more complex, so I am glad that we had a small group– I spent the majority of time in the kitchen.
I thought about you several times yesterday– how fast all of this is going by since you were born– it will be 8 weeks tomorrow! Hard to believe that you have been outside of Momma for 8 weeks now– the first couple months are supposed to be the hardest– but I think we have been really lucky. You just let out the biggest burp I think I have heard from you — possibly ever. It’s stuff like that that simply makes you so freaking adorable. Hard to believe I waited this long to have kids– and maybe some of that is because maybe I didn’t meet the right person until i met your mother– but whatever the reason, here you are and you are the best damn thing ever.
Next year, I think Thanksgiving will be a lot more complicated. You will be almost 14 months old at that point, which means you will not be sleeping through most of the giving– instead, you will be running around, reeking havok everywhere and than you will be eating Thanksgiving– and probably making Mashed Potato castles with Turkey Gravy moat… Oh the joy!