Thanksgiving is my favourite holiday

I've only realized this in the last few years, but Thanksgiving is by far my favourite holiday. It springs up on you outta nowhere - summer ends, school starts, life gets crazy, and then bam! - it's Thanksgiving. But the nice thing is that you don't need to rush around like a crazy woman at the mall on Christmas Eve (yes, that's me!) There's really no preparation required, other than thawing out the turkey a few days in advance. Sure, it's no easy feat to prepare a huge meal for your friends and family (19 people in my case!), but there's no decorating, no shopping, no gift-wrapping, no staff parties, etc. It's just a meal, and considering I'm a half-decent cook and a half-crappy decorator/shopper/gift-wrapper, Thanksgiving ends up being all of the fun and none of the hassle, therefore making it my favourite holiday.

(Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas, and I particularly love my annual 30th birthday party, but Thanksgiving is still the best.)

As I said, we had 12 adults and 7 kids here for supper. I made

• turkey that was brined, basted in maple syrup, and covered in bacon (I tried to get a picture of this beautiful bird when it came out of the oven, but when we tried to move it onto my big turkey platter, it literally fell apart! Talk about tender!)
• Crockpot Honey Mustard Ham (I realized the night before that my turkey was only 10 lbs. and likely not big enough to feed everyone, so I ran to the store and got a ham - although we ended up with tons leftover.)
• stuffing (straight from the box! I made 4 boxes so we wouldn't run out. I love stuffing!)
• Maple Roasted Root Vegetables (this makes an enormous amount of veggies)
• Spinach & Gruyère Cheese Puff (I used a big 16 oz. container of fresh spinach and chopped it up instead of using frozen spinach)

Every family brought a side dish as well, so we also had

• cream cheese/salsa/shrimp dip for an appetizer
• mashed potatoes
• homemade sourdough bread
• Caesar salad
• broccoli salad
• bean salad
• an interesting pink macaroni salad (thanks Grandma)
• bacon (that was cooked on the turkey)
• beets
• cranberry jelly
• pumpkin, apple, and blueberry pies with icecream

(This picture doesn't even show all the food! There was more on the table.)

We have tons of leftovers, and everyone was beyond stuffed by the end of the night. Everything was soooooo yummy (except for Grandma's salad, sorry, but it's true.) The best part (if there can actually be something better than all that food) was that we had a gorgeous summer day here in Saskatchewan in the middle of October. The sun was shining, it was 20+ degrees out, and we got to sit outside and enjoy the beautiful day with some wonderful people. Two years ago, here's what it looked like at our old house on Thanksgiving:

Thanksgiving may be my favourite holiday, but Thanksgiving 2010 was definitely my favourite Thanksgiving!! Now that's something to be thankful for!