Thanksgiving

The House of Nerd enjoyed a good Thanksgiving last night. Grandma and Grandpa came over and joined the Nerdparents, Pax and the pets for turkey, stuffing, veggies and pie...

...after a series of small disasters, of course. After all, it wouldn't be my life without some minor crises! First, the turkey did fit into either my mom's roasting pan (brought over by my dad at 9 AM) or my roasting pan. I wanted to use my mom's because it is slightly larger (by virtue of being an oval instead of a rectangle) and it has a lid. The turkey was having none of it:

After wrestling the bird between the two pans, it ended up in mine. I then had to call my parents again and my dad brought me a roll of aluminum foil at 10 AM, since I'd run out. I got the foil tented over the turkey and went to put the 21-pound fowl into the oven... when the pan got stuck in the oven rack somehow and I spilled the turkey. I had broth in the bottom of the pan and it went EVERYWHERE. My husband helped clean up and the turkey made into the oven without incident on the second attempt. It was worth the effort, as it came out fantastic:

Of course I had a couple of helpers for dinner:

Here's my "tablescape". Doesn't that sound fancy, "tablescape"? It's a fancy word for being motivated enough to actually set the table properly for once in my life.

This stuff makes my holiday: jellied cranberry sauce from a can. It's so wrong, but oh so right, and I always, always make sure that it comes out in the shape of the can. It wouldn't come in a can if Ocean Spray didn't mean for it to be served that way.

Here's what our meal looked like, pre-gravy and sans-cranberry. Oh, and sans-Swede. Have you guys heard about Swedish turnip/Rutabaga? It's a vegetable, a nasty, nasty vegetable. My father likes it and no one else in the family will touch it (including, now, Paxton).

Oh, and this is still a parenting blog, so you'd better have some baby:

I hope everyone else (in the US, at least) had an excellent Thanksgiving! I got up insanely early today to do some traditional Black Friday shopping with my BFF/Pax's nonbiological aunt and we got some pretty good deals. :)