Thanksgiving Part 2

Olivia with her Turkey Party Hat

Today we celebrated Thanksgiving again, this time with Eduardo's family.  I love Thanksgiving so I'm perfectly happy celebrating it two times.  The day after Thanksgiving is often referred to as Black Friday where stores have shopping sales and marks the beginning of the Christmas Season.  I have never participated in a Black Friday sale;   the idea of standing in lines outside a store in the middle of night waiting for that store to open at 4am doesn't sound fun to me.  I'll stick to my current routine of buying Christmas gifts in October.  It's so nice to focus on the true meaning of the season and not shopping.

Our day was very busy with preparations.  From cleaning house, to setting the table and most importantly the food.  Everything ran rather smoothly except for the fact that our Turkey, which was suppose to cook in 4 to 5 hours, was finished 2 1/2 hours early.  Our guest weren't able to come early so we had the task of keeping everything warm and hoping that the turkey didn't dry out.

Lucy with her hat.  I found these at Target in the dollar section.

For our turkey we decided to try to brine it first before we roasted it.  Basically we took our our 5 gallon water cooler and filled it with equal parts water and kosher salt.  We let the raw thawed turkey sit in this solution in the fridge (we put it in our cold garage.  With the cold temps lately it was colder than our fridge) for 24 to 36 hours. I believe it is suppose to help keep the turkey moist.

Lucy and Olivia

We had a typical Thanksgiving menu of Roasted Turkey, Garlic Mashed Potatoes and homemade gravy, Stuffing/Dressing, fresh streamed green beans, hot rolls, jell-o salad, veggie tray, homemade cranberry sauce and sparkling cider to drink.  For dessert we had a chocolate cream pie and pumpkin pie.

We had a lovely meal with Eduardo's brother and his wife followed with an evening of playing games.

Our table all set for our Thanksgiving feast.

I love these napkins and this is one of my favorite folds to do.  

Several years ago I picked up these child napkin or utensil holders at Pottery Barn Kids.  They are supposed to be the Mayflower ship that the Pilgrims sailed on.  I would like to find some nice white or cream napkins to use as sails. 

I forgot to take pictures of all the food, but this is the delicious veggie tray, relish tray and homemade cranberry sauce.

Garlic mashed potatoes, yummy!

While we waited for our guests the girls played "Pin the Pilgrim hat on the turkey."

She was excited to have placed the hat exactly on the turkey's head. She cheated a little and peaked under the blindfold.   I also picked up this game in Target's dollar section.

Lucy wanted to try it too!