Just like almost everything this year, our Thanksgiving looked very different from most years. With spiking COVID numbers and recommendations to keep Thanksgiving gatherings to those you live with, we opted for an at-home Thanksgiving with our little family.
We started our day with a Zoom Thanksgiving get together with cousins. There was a puppet message from Grammie followed by some Thanksgiving trivia and a Thanksgiving scavenger hunt. Although we couldn't all be together in person, the kids had a lot of fun getting to play with their cousins virtually.
Staley made potholders and delivered potholders with notes to our neighbors, letting them know that we are thankful for them.
Since we were making our full Thanksgiving feast on our own this year, each person was in charge of a specific dish. I made the turkey (breast) in the crockpot, the gravy, and the ham. Adelie made strawberry pretzel jello salad while Briggs supervised.
Staley made Uma's famous scalloped pineapple casserole.
Briggs and Zach worked together to make the rolls.
When our food was done, we delivered some of our feast to our special neighbor friend, Miss Vickie.
In return, Miss Vickie made mashed potatoes and corn casserole to share with us. Since this was her first Thanksgiving alone with her husband in the nursing home, I hated that we couldn't share our table with her. I was glad we could at least share our food.
We enjoyed our massive Thanksgiving feast and soon realized a perk of making a full Thanksgiving meal for our little family. We have since enjoyed Thanksgiving leftover dinner # 2 and are looking forward to Thanksgiving leftover dinner #3 tonight. Bonus! We rounded out our Thanksgiving day fun with a walk to help our food settle followed by movie night and pumpkin pie (courtesy of Grammie) for dinner.
There have been moments this year where it has been a lot easier to focus on things that are cancelled, things that we have missed out on, things that are different, things that are going wrong. It is easy to lament 2020 and all that it has brought with it, just wishing for it to be over. However, Thanksgiving was an opportunity to focus on all we have to be grateful for. We are healthy. We have stable jobs. We have wonderful family and friends who we still connect with even when we can't be together. Our kids get to go to school. And although this year has not been what we planned, we've explored new places, found new hobbies, embraced a slower lifestyle, and enjoyed lots of family time. This day was not what we had planned. This year was not what we had planned. But in the midst of it all, there is so much to be thankful for. It was a happy Thanksgiving indeed!
