I love the Internet. Have I mentioned how much I love the Internet? I love the Internet because my memory for details isn’t always the world’s greatest, and I’m a bit disorganized, so writing down details often doesn’t help (my current brain, a small spiral bound notebook that stores everything from book recommendations to my aunts’ email addresses, is … somewhere, in this house). However, when I store things online (and remember to tag them properly) they’re easy to find, which means that in preparation for Thanksgiving this week, I can read about TDay 2.0 from this year, and be reminded of important things that I’d completely forgotten about (such as the fact that the turkey took twice as long as it should have to thaw, and that it had innards tucked inside that needed to be removed before cooking. Luckily, this was a holy water blessed happy organic bird, and the giblets were packed in paper, not plastic.) So, far anyone who is cooking a big meal for the holidays this year for the first time, that’s my first bit of advice: write down everything, from how well dishes went over to how long things took to cook, so that the next year, you can make new and more interesting mistakes. :)

My family has generally gone up to Baltimore for Thanksgiving with my mother’s family. However, the matriarch of the family, my grandmother, passed away this fall, and so we decided to stay down here for this Thanksgiving and just do Thanksgiving with our immediate family (mom, dad, me, Jeff, my two sisters, and our cousin-that’s-more-of-a-brother). I suggested that we split up the cooking so that no one person was going crazy with all the cooking, and everyone agree that was a good idea. So, we’re having:

pre-dinner gaming and cooking munchies

chex mix (my mother makes the best chex mix on the planet. One day, I need to remember to get the recipe from her)
sausage balls
spinach balls

dinner
turkey
stuffing
French bread (one of my sisters doesn’t care for stuffing, so yes, we’re having both bread and stuffing. If the bread doesn’t vanish during the cooking and gaming stage of the day)
green beans
corn
mashed potatoes and gravy
stuffed mushrooms
yams with brown sugar and marshmallows
cranberry sauce

dessert

pumpkin roll
pecan pie
whatever else my mom makes - she loves dessert, and is good at it, and I doubt she’ll keep to a pecan pie. :)

Jeff and I are responsible for the pumpkin roll, the turkey, the stuffing, the sausage balls, and the French bread.

I need to make a grocery list and a plan of attack for the day itself, so we don’t end up eating at 9pm. :)