Kind of our First Thanksgiving

I'm thankful for the many things the Lord has given me;

my food, my clothes, my ears that hear, and my eyes that see.

I'm blessed to have a warm, safe home and to live where I am free,

But most of all I'm thankful for my wonderful family.

This Thanksgiving was  "kind of our first Thanksgiving" in that it was the first time we've had Thanksgiving dinner at our house. It was also the first Thanksgiving I've had with my brothers Michael and John since we've graduated from High School. John and his family drove down from Idaho to spend Thanksgiving weekend with us. Michael and his family came from Orem for Thanksgiving Day.

 I was excited to have Thanksgiving here. I started testing recipes about a month ago and after 4 practice runs with turkey recipes, I concluded that practice doesn't make perfect. It only proves that no matter what you do something is bound to go wrong, so don't worry about it. Even so, the practice was helpful and the turkey turned out great. 5th time's a charm I guess. In the last 30 minutes before dinner our kitchen somewhat resembled "Iron Chef America" as Luke and my two brothers took orders from me while we scrambled to finish everything up. It was fun cooking with Luke. He hefted the turkey for me and kept an eye on the creamed corn. He persuaded me to spare the green beans when, convinced that the onions were too caramelized, I was going to throw them away and start over. Michael was the assistant gravy chef and John was the table runner. Everyone chipped in in lots of ways, and if it weren't for all of the help I got from all of my gracious family dinner never would've happened. 

While dinner preparations were under way, the kids colored their own Thanksgiving placemats for the table and everyone wrote what they were thankful for on a paper leaf and put it on our family tree. After dinner we had an impromptu Wii party, followed by dessert. 

Growing up, my mom had a tradition of making everyone their own pie, flavor of their choice. I was not about to do that, but rather chose one dessert in honor of each our Smart Family groups.  We had my mom's favorite dessert (brownie pudding) to represent the family gathered together in Maryland, my sister-in-law's favorite dessert (berry cobbler) to represent the family in New Hampshire, and a pie that my brother brought for the Utah Smart Family celebration. After dessert we welcomed in the Christmas season by turning on our Christmas lights. 

One of my favorite things about this year's Thanksgiving was actually the day before Thanksgiving. I had a rose-colored idea that I wanted all of my girls to be involved in the dinner preparations. I selected some menu items that were simple enough for them to legitimately participate in the making of and I invited them all into the kitchen to pursue my goal of achieving family togetherness through culinary cooperation. Even with that goal in mind, there came a point when all three of them were sitting on the counter arguing, one with soapy water up to her elbows and the other with her finger in the brown sugar, and I almost said, "You know what, go watch TV and let me take care of this." 

Earlier I spoke with my mother about traditional Thanksgiving dinners. She offered that working together to make the dinner is the part of Thanksgiving traditions that bond a family. We discussed how the trick is to do enough work to create the opportunity for group cooperation and individual contribution while not overworking the people involved. With that in mind, I bit my tongue and regrouped and you know what? I had fun. 

Each girl had one dish that they "made" and they were proud to see it on the table and to show it off to our guests. They were genuinely helpful, especially where washing dishes was concerned. In fact, Beth was so dedicated to washing dishes she spent the better part of an hour at the kitchen sink and used most of a bottle of detergent. At one point I handed a dirty spoon to Madeleine and asked her to please put it in the dishwasher. She surprised me by handing it to Beth, assuming I was referring to Beth as The Dishwasher.  The whole morning was well worth a little chaos. 

There are more years to come where we'll work together in the kitchen, making dinner while creating memories.  Someday, I may even sit back and let them do all work! For this year, I am thankful for soapy dishes, chocolate splatters, sticky fingers, and licking beaters.  True, it took longer and made a bigger mess than if I would've done it by myself. It is also true that we each have something to give and something to gain by doing things together. Whether they will remember it or not, my girls were a part of Thanksgiving this year and that matters. I think they learned something about cooking and hopefully that will prove useful in their futures. More so I hope they learned something about how it feels to be part of a family and what it means to work together and serve each other. I did, and that made this "kind of our first Thanksgiving" the best kind.  

(see slide show for pictures)