Besides Christmas, Thanksgiving has become my favorite holiday because it gathers our family together for a length of time longer than a quick meal, baby sitting exchange, errand, and the like. When I was growing up, I hated Thanksgiving because I always seemed to get in trouble during that holiday. In hindsight, I failed to see all the great times shared because all I focused, and even anticipated, on how I got trouble and scolded. But, a few years ago, when Jack started the initiative where he and I hosted the Thanksgiving meal, I’ve replaced the focus of getting in trouble with my parents to being a parent, and getting in trouble making up recipes in the kitchen Thanksgiving day.
I would be wrong to leave out the second person who has changed my Thanksgiving experience. Jennilyn’s hospitality, spirit of celebration, and artistic crafts have made Thanksgiving almost magical. Especially this year. I really enjoyed watching my family and friends get engaged with arts and crafts as Jack and I burn, scorch, delicately crisp the turkey. I give Jack a hard time about the turkey because, almost every year, there is some debacle about the turkey, not always a fault on him.
This year, on a whim, we decided to try roasting a turkey with a duck stuffed inside. Why? Because I heard about it from the person cutting my hair at Great Clips the Monday before Thanksgiving. Now, you can see why it isn’t always Jack’s fault that the turkey process is risky and shooting-from-the-hip. We looked up some information about “turduckens” and went for it. Adding to the comedy of errors for the turkey, we roasted the bird for fifteen minutes on five hundred degrees to brown it, then failed to set the temperature on the oven for the next hour and half. So the concoction sat in the oven until Jack felt that the oven was cold.
Thankfully, Jennilyn had crockpot a turkey of her own, a few days earlier, to make turkey gravy. So we were able to serve everyone some turkey while the turduck roasted. In the end, the turkey Jack prepared was the best yet. It had a great flavor and the meat was still moist.
What I’ll remember most from the turduck experience is Jack and I trying to shove the duck into the turkey body. It just seemed so wrong on different levels.
The other tradition we have is twenty pounds of mashed potatoes. I always get looks when I describe it to others that we prepare twenty pounds of mashed potatoes. But we love our mashed potatoes. It had turned out better in other years, I added too much potato leek soup, so the mashed potatoes was more like cookie battery consistency. It tasted great with Jenni’s gravy, so we let it go.
Our Thanksgiving feast started at 1pm and everyone stayed after to fellowship. It was a better schedule than earlier years when we had people come at 4pm. It gave us the afternoon to catch up, play games, and enjoy conversations. Jack, Rachel, Rachel’s mom Sara, Elaine, and I enjoyed a few rounds of bridge. I always look forward to an opportunity to play bridge with Jenni’s grandma. It reminds me of playing bridge with my grandpa, who taught me the game.
Before the everyone started to head home, I played guitar with Jenni’s dad. He’s pretty awesome by letting me strum along a song while he added finger picking to it. I didn’t think I’d be jamming with someone on the guitar so soon. I look forward to getting better so I can play along with both my dads.