Happy Thanksgiving!

The day after Thanksgiving...For most it probably means shopping, and maybe some extended rest time, especially if you joined the madness at 2am. For us, it's been a time for tidying up a messy kitchen, catching up on some neglected chores (laundry, ahem) and chilling. And studying, for Toby.

 

We had a great time yesterday. We watched some of the parade in the morning, though it was the Philly parade, since they're the only ones who will stream things online. The kids were baffled at why they kept singing Christmas songs and "doing Christmas-y things" when it's only Thanksgiving. Good question, really.

 

I pottered around in the kitchen with some ham and parsnips to keep me company. Since about 5 for so families had planned to meet up for Thanksgiving dinner, we all took responsibility for different parts - I made honey mustard parsnips and ham to share. Interestingly, most folks had never had a parsnip before and weren't really sure what it was. Granted, I didn't exactly grow up eating them either. I'm not sure how everyone felt about them - I know people ate them, and I didn't see anyone gagging on them, so I'll take that to be a good sign. The ham was okay, but not great. The funny thing about the ham is that Toby bought a 7lb piece of meat, which we decided probably wouldn't be enough, so he bought a second, equally-sized joint. Out of the 14lbs of meat we brought, I figure we all ate about 5lbs of it - needless to say, we'll be eating ham-based leftovers for a little while.

 

When we all got home, we were so very tired! I'm not really sure what was so taxing, but the little kids were in bed by 7pm, and the big ones followed a half hour later. The girls took books to bed, but no one really complained about an early night. Poor Toby - as soon as we walked in the door, he crashed. He'd been fighting a runny nose and some congestion all day, so by the evening, he was done. It was good, however, to get a very good night's sleep.

 

Here's to a restful and enjoyable holiday weekend, for one and all!