(Alexandra found a video on youtube of a lady singing, and acting this song out in her backyard. It immediately became a family favorite and our Thanksgiving mantra!)
I used one of the kids’ two joker days from school so that they could stay home. Chris works from home on Thursdays anyway, but he took half a vacation day so he could hang out with us all afternoon and not feel guilty. 🙂 The missionaries are set to arrive at 2:00, I believe. But then something happened and they didn’t come for another 45 minutes. So the ham got cold, the turkey breast got cold, but at least the monkey bread had time to finish cooking! haha.
Every year on Thanksgiving I covet all those gorgeous American kitchens I see on tv shows and in movies. You know, with the giant island in the middle, enough counter space to sleep a family of 5, a fridge you can hide a dead body in, and two ovens! Instead I have to wash each pot or utensil as I use it, and put everything away when I am finished with so I have enough room to start on the next dish. Crazy. And then comes the cooking part. Figuring out what should go where in the oven, and in what order, always makes me feel like I’m trying to solve a giant, hot, edible slide puzzle. Even Chris was impressed with my oven feats this year. At one point, I seriously considered knocking on my downstairs neighbor’s door, asking to borrow her oven for an hour. But I made it work in the end. And no cuss words escaped my lips! I was pretty impressed myself. haha
The thing I was most excited about this year was getting to use my brand-new gorgeous tablecloth. My friend T. made it, I don’t know when, and decided she didn’t like it enough to go to the hassle of turning it into an actual quilt. So I bought it from her, because it was the absolute perfect blend of fall colors for a Thanksgiving tablecloth. Doesn’t it just look fantastic? And it’s so detailed, we don’t need any other decorations on the table, leaving lots more room for food!
Last year, Aunt Liz brought over these turkey hats for us, and Sophie found it in the decorations box. She immediately put it on and wore it the whole day! It made me smile every time I saw her.
I tried a few new recipes this year, and they were given very high reviews. The first was crockpot mashed potatoes. 
You still boil them on the stovetop like normal, but once they are mashed, you stir in sour cream, cream cheese, and a few spices and put them in the crockpot on low. I loved it because I could make them in the morning, rather than trying to mash potatoes, and make gravy at the same time just before we eat. The guests loved them because they were soooooo tasty!
The second was a marinade for the turkey breast. When we have gotten whole turkeys, we always brine it, and it’s always delicious. But I wasn’t sure how a brine would work on just a breast. So I used a marinade I remember my mom doing several years ago, made with soy sauce and 7up as the key ingredients. Sounds kinda freaky, tastes heavenly!
We also had monkey bread, or as Chris called them in his family, pull aparts! It is one of his few memories of Thanksgiving in America before they moved to Switzerland. His grandma always made them, so now we do, too!
Naturally, there was also cranberry ice, a tradition from my family, my mom’s crescent rolls, and delicious pie. The kids also made sugar cookies into turkeys using carefully hoarded candy corns sent to us by Grandma. They don’t really care for any of the other desserts on offer, so this is a good way to keep them occupied while I am cooking, and keep them happy when the meal is over.
Yes, I really did have time to sit down and eat with the family. It was a great, fun day, filled with family, friends, and food. Just what Thanksgiving should be.
And what’s a major holiday without a little family drama to spice things up, right? During dessert, Alexandra got bored and wandered off. She was very quiet for a very long time. I was too busy chatting to notice, but Chris sensed something was wrong after a while. She came strolling back in, sporting a new cropped ‘do, courtesy of herself and Noah’s scissors. Here is what we found when we went to investigate.
It wouldn’t be so tragic if her she didn’t have so little hair to begin with. It takes forever to grow and here she went and hacked it all off. She took a chunk off the front, and snipped a little off one of the sides as well. sigh 
Chris said it was just a rite of passage that all kids go through in childhood, but it still hurts to have your just-getting-cute-little-girl turn into a hideous freak in the blink of an eye. Okay, okay, it’s not that bad, I know. And at least her face is cute! I love when she wears her winter coat with the hood up, then she looks the very best. We were thankful on this day of gratitude that she decided not to hack any more off!