Catching Up Before Christmas (Thanksgiving 2025)

We'll already be lighting our second purple Advent candle tomorrow, and I haven't even gotten around to blogging about Thanksgiving yet.  So I thought I'd document that celebration before the Christmas season starts to get really busy!

We had 25 people at our house on Thanksgiving: 12 adults and 13 children.  Joining us were sons #3, #4, and #5 and their combined 11 offspring, and also son #4's in-laws (his wife Braveheart's mom and dad, her brother, his wife, and their two small children). 

We tried something different this year and decided that along with the turkey, we would roast two large chickens.  We bought some plump, pasture-raised Thanksgiving chickens at the farm where we pick up our raw milk every week.  (Yes!  In our old age, my hubby and I have gotten a bit crunchy!  But raw milk has so many health benefits.  If you don't believe me, google it!)  The amazing thing was that we got almost as much meat from a 9-pound chicken as we did from the much bigger 20-pound turkey!  And I don't know about you, but I think turkey drumsticks are so not worth it.  They're always too tough.  But those chicken drumsticks were tender and juicy and thoroughly enjoyed by one of our grandsons.  I mixed the turkey and chicken drippings together and the gravy was abundant, which is a good thing; because according to my boys, gravy is the most important item on the Thanksgiving menu.  And that gravy was amazing--if I do say so myself. (I rarely brag about my cooking, which almost always falls short of my expectations; so hearing me say that is akin to spotting a unicorn.)

What a joy it was to have son #5's little fam with us for the week!

Most years, I admittedly try to do too much.  I actually enjoy all the prep work and planning, and just having the privilege of putting on this holiday feast for my kids and grandkids.  But finally this year, I took the pack off (partially) and let others do most of the side dishes.  We provided the turkey and chicken, gravy, stuffing, and assorted beverages.  I made a double-batch of caramel brownies and a cheesecake for dessert.  But the other gals involved brought the rest of the yumminess, including garlic mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, macaroni and cheese casserole, spinach and pasta casserole, cranberry sauce, rolls, pumpkin pie, ice cream, and hors d'oeuvres.  Son #5 and his family were with us for the week, and his wife Babisiu* made a scrumptious sweet potato dish.  So as you can see, I had it relatively easy this year.  And the food was so good.  (I probably enjoyed it even more because someone other than myself had made so much of it!)

BTW, I always cook my birds the day before.  After they've cooled, my husband carves them and puts them in casserole dishes, and we pour a generous amount of chicken or turkey broth in there to keep them moist while they're stored in the fridge overnight.  Then on the big day, all you have to do is warm up the casserole dishes.  Easy peasy!  The meat is always so juicy and tender, too, and doing it this way saves so much stress and makes it so that you can relax a bit and actually enjoy the day itself.  At least, that's how it is for me.  (Were you looking for advice about how to cook your turkey?  If so, you're welcome.  If not, sorry for sounding like I've got it all together.  I don't, believe me.)

For years, we've been using these disposable chafing dishes for our big parties to keep all the food warm. As the festivities were going on, my husband and I were discussing how maybe it was time to get some really good, heavy-duty, stainless steel ones.  We host big groups enough, we reasoned, that it would be well worth the money to invest in them.

 

Well, at one point I looked over at him and he was on his phone, and I asked him if he was ordering them right that minute.  And he was!  Mid-party, he was shopping!  He is so funny.  While he was on Amazon ordering the chafing dishes, he also ordered 36 place settings of inexpensive caterer-style stainless silverware, so that we never again have to purchase plasticware for our family gatherings.  No more aluminum chafing dishes, no more paper plates, no more plasticware.  We're getting serious here.

Picture-taking was not high on my priority list that day, but here's a snapshot of the kids' table.

And here's a sub-par pic of the adults' table.  Excuse the terrible lighting--someone should have turned off those lamps, I guess. 

So that was our Thanksgiving.  And now, it's on to Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year. My favorite.  God bless you, dear readers!  And Happy St. Nicholas Day!

*I gave my D-I-L this Polish term of endearment because my husband and I took a Christmas trip to Poland with her before she married our son, when he was on an Army deployment over there.  I just discovered that it means grandmother--which, as you can imagine, is not what I thought it meant!  I might have to give her a new blog handle!

Thanksgiving 2021

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Three of our five sons (#1, #4, and #5), nine of our 17 grandchildren, and one daughter-in-law's parents were with us for dinner, making it a grand total of 19 turkey eaters.  (And then son #2 came over later in the evening after he'd had dinner at his in-laws' house, so that he could spend some time with our youngest son and his wife, who had traveled from Nashville to spend the holiday with us.) Our middle son and his family were in FL with his wife's folks.

I cooked a 21 lb. turkey and a 10 lb. turkey breast...on Wednesday!  After it cooled, my husband carved it up on Wednesday night and then we put all the meat in a huge pan with chicken broth to keep it moist.  All we had to do was warm it up the next day.  The drippings were stored in the fridge, ready to heat up and turn into gravy; the stuffing had been transferred from the bird into a baking dish, ready for warming up with some extra butter on Thursday.  Easy peasy!

I love having the main items done ahead of time; it makes Thanksgiving day so much less stressful.  My daughters-in-law were a little skeptical about pre-cooking the turkey; but I can assure you it was moist and delicious.  And because it was already done, that left all the oven space for cooking the numerous side dishes.  (We do not have two ovens in this VA house--and we probably should!  But we make do.)

It's always a tad chaotic at our house on holidays.  In a good way.  But definitely chaotic!  I had pretty paper products for the kids and nice china set out for the grown-ups.  But big people were grabbing little people plates (to be honest, they were Pioneer Woman brand, so big that they held a good bit more food than the nice plates could!).  The grown-ups were also grabbing plasticware, instead of the sets of good silverware wrapped in cloth napkins and held together with the silver napkin rings my mother gave me many moons ago and which almost never get used.  AAAGGGHHH! Initially, I was going to have the kids sit in the kitchen and the grown-ups in the dining room, but I decided to ditch that plan pretty early on.  Everyone just helped themselves to the buffet-style fixings and sat wherever...and it all worked out just fine. 

My husband reminded me that it's unrealistic to expect Thanksgiving to look like this iconic Norman Rockwell painting, when there are 19 of us, nine of them children!

I've decided that moving forward, I'm going to use paper plates and plasticware any time there are more than 10 Pearls gathered for a meal at our house.  If we have just one family over, the good china and silverware will come out. But otherwise, I think it's just a better plan to keep it simple.

And Pioneer Woman really does make the most beautiful paper products.  Here's the style of plates I'm hoping to have for our Christmas extravaganza, when 27 of us (all but our youngest and his wife) will be gathered at Casa Papa and Grammy.

These plates are extra large and better yet, unbreakable. Not too mention disposable! And I just love Pioneer Woman’s cheerful style.

Hope you had a beautiful Thanksgiving.  And Happy Advent, dear readers!