What a holiday-filled week it’s been! Rick and I went shopping for our Thanksgiving dinner supplies on Monday. He allowed me to take this picture of him in a Santa hat:
(I also have a picture of him in a leprechaun hat from St. Patrick’s day a few years ago. Am thinking of collecting pictures of Rick in strange hats.)
For Thanksgiving dinner, I planned to cook the turkey, stuffing and gravy from scratch and go with pre-prepared for rolls, mashed potatoes (the frozen ones from TJ’s are pretty good), sweet potatoes (microwave-in-bag), creamed corn, cranberry sauce (again, thank you TJ’s), pumpkin pie and whipped cream. The stuffing started out promising. Fresh marjoram, thyme and sage with minced and sauteed onions and celery. Sandwhich bread cut into 1/2-inch cubes and toasted in the oven. I put it in a casserole dish to bak during the last hour of turkey-cooking time. But the turkey took an extra hour to cook and I had beer and a headache and … it ended up burned. D’oh!
The gravy, which was to be made from drippings that cooked in the bottom of the pan with coarsely-chopping onions, celery and carrots, turned out fine. Even though I burned the veggies by not adding enough chicken broth in the first hour. While I napped on the couch, overwhelmed by all the burning, Rick supervised the last hour of turkey-cooking and turned out a juicy, well-roasted bird. Thank goodness. And then I burned the rolls in the toaster oven. Double d’oh!
Not too bad for a first on-our-own Thanksgiving, though. I had back-up stuffing in a box in the cupboard. And there were still rolls left over that I have managed to not-burn everytime we have leftovers.
I used the rest of the weekend to start on Christmas. Rick helped me put up LED Christmas lights from Costco:
View the rest of my Holidays 2008 pictures here.
And, I also got the jump on addressing and signing all my Christmas cards. Only have to get a few more Christmas presents and I can relax and enjoy the season. Woohoo!