Stop making those of us who are spending Thanksgiving with our friends rather than our family (for whatever reason, primarily because we moved out of our parent’s house some time ago and perhaps EVEN to a different city or state, and maybe we have work that doesn’t let us off for days and days on end) feel like ungrateful losers.  It’s going to be a fantastic day and I’m sorry you have to come up with ways to "survive the holidays" while some of us are looking forward to one of the best days of the year!

Friends are the family you choose for yourself. 

And no disrespect to my family (love you all and hope to see you in January!), but the best part of friends is that there is no unconditional love so you have to be good people to each other to keep the relationship alive.  Seems healthier to me!

I love celebrating holidays with the people I spend the most time with.  I am so thankful to not have to brave the crowds to travel anywhere.  I’m thankful this ecard isn’t applicable to me.

Do I seem weird and bitter in this post? 

I’m just tired of people making me feel bad that I am not spending Thanksgiving with my family.  Guess what!  I am not spending Christmas with them either.  And please try not to make me feel bad about that either.  I’ve invited them all to my wedding, no worries! 

I’m sure you will though.  And then you’ll tell me when I have my own kids I’ll understand. 

Love,

Hannahviolin

These two years we hosted Thanksgiving.  The first year was just (I think) 5 of us, the second year was more like a dozen.  Both years were awesome.

Chris is very proud of his turkey.

I would marry that corn casserole if I weren’t already engaged.

The plate! 

Our guests sleeping afterwards…

Chris needed me to hold up his head.

Onto 2009:

2009 we invited a bunch of people.  The night before I was making pies and it turned out that our oven was slightly broken.  Our friend Erik came over to fix it and almost died (he shocked himself something bad, not really almost died, but I was frightening, especially as how he insisted we didn’t need to unplug the oven).  It was a near disaster—basically the oven knob was off kilter and heated the oven up to about 250 degrees rather than 375, for instance.  But the crisis was averted!  We also rented chairs, a table, and dishes, since after inviting everyone we realized that we have a table for two people.

The pies!  That’s apple, old fashioned cream, and pumpkin bread pudding (which I am repeating this year!)

The turkey! Up close and personal.

The rented table is set!  It wasn’t the ideal setting, but it was a lot of fun.

Obligatory turkey picture!  Chris is usually the one making the turkey, if you haven’t figured this out.

Another corn casserole to die for!  (This is one of my favorite things.  I don’t think we’re having it at Thanksgiving this year but no worries, I’ll make it for Christmas dinner instead.)

Here’s where my Thanksgiving priorities are:  I have lots of pictures of the food and very few pictures of the guests.  Then again, food never says, oh, no, I don’t look good, don’t take my picture!  Food says EAT ME NOW.

Today I’m thankful for vacation!  I don’t have to work until Friday afternoon, yay!  I had a workout, got a haircut, and did the shopping for Thanksgiving plus some prep for the Cookie party. 

Moving right along…

I don’t seem to have any pictures of Thanksgiving 2006.  I recall it was in Cleveland—Chris and I were invited to celebrate with some friends, though not terribly close friends.  It’s a bit bittersweet looking back because one of the other guests has since passed away.  The meal was delicious though, and it was a good Thanksgiving.  We spend the rest of the day watching CSI:Miami.  Why do I remember this?  I don’t know!

2007 was one of my favorites.  We went to Phoenix to celebrate with Leslie and Sarah!

This Chris’s famous butter turkey recipe, so good!  I promise we didn’t eat it until it was fully cooked.

I thought I had more pictures of this but I can’t seem to find them.  Anyway, Leslie and I put together an amazing menu (primarily butter, of course) and had a wonderful time planning, cooking, and baking.  The highlight may have been running to the grocery store the night before, afraid we didn’t have enough pies planned, so ultimately we had (I believe) 6 pies for 10 to 12 people.  I think that was more than enough.

Did you know in Phoenix you can eat Thanksgiving Dinner outside?  We ate in her backyard patio on a picnic table. 

(Those are baked apples, bottom right hand side.  I believe we left them in the oven too long.)

Okay, I perused my snapfish account for more Thanksgiving pictures.  I found nothing from 2004, but then I remembered:  I went to Miami Beach to visit Chris at New World over Thanksgiving 2004.  I was living in Cleveland at the time and he was in Miami Beach playing with the New World Symphony.  We ate out Thanksgiving!  The first and (hopefully) last time we do that.  I do remember it was pretty tasty, and we didn’t spend that much money (I believe it was under $20 because we were cheap and poor then.)  Now I spend that much just on Thanksgiving dessert materials!  My, how times have changed.

I found some pictures labeled Thanksgiving 2005 but I can’t really recall the details.  It seems I went to visit family at Laurelville (a retreat my dad’s side of the family often goes to—it’s in Pennsylvania, easy driving distance from Cleveland and it is rather rustic.)  I vaguely recall this—this must have been Leslie’s first year in Phoenix, because she wasn’t with us.  Chris wasn’t with me either—he might have been in San Diego at the time.  It was my grandmother’s 80th birthday though, and I remember the cake tasted fantastic!  It was filled with raspberry and was delicious.  It’s funny the things that stick in your head…

My brother’s girlfriend, Yuchu, gave my grandmother a giant Nestle bar (she worked for the company at the time.)  I think Grandma was a bit overwhelmed by the size of it.

This is captioned “Chelsea and Carrie at Bell’s Steakhouse.”  Chelsea is a cousin, Carrie is my sister.

My parents!

My cousin Sarah and I.  Sarah is now married and lives in Cambridge, England.  You can see all sorts of family members in the background, including my grandmother again.

So that’s two more years of Thanksgivings!  It’s amazing how few pictures I used to take 🙂  And then I would sometimes wait for months to develop them (or perhaps finish the roll?).  It’s also amazing how I still have basically the same hair do…does that mean my hairstyle is classic or dated?  Or boring?

Don’t answer that.  I’ve gotten enough input on the great makeup debate, I don’t need a hair debate 😉

30 days of Thanksgiving:  I’m thankful for online photo sites because scanning pictures into the computer is a pain.  I’m also thankful I have a scanner.  In case I left out a day recently…I’m thankful for filled cake.  I can’t wait to taste our wedding cake!

I thought it would be fun (for me) to go through some of my old photos to find previous year’s Thanksgivings!  These are from 2003.  I was living with my sister Leslie in Cleveland at the time and we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving with our friends.  After we made that decision, my grandmother invited Leslie and I to have Thanksgiving at her house (approximately 2 1/2 hours away.)  What to do?  Well, we postponed our Friend’s Thanksgiving until Saturday!  I recall both meals were delicious and it was a great year.  I probably gained 15 pounds from having two Thanksgivings.

Chris made the Turkey, of course.  I don’t know why he didn’t come with Leslie and me to my grandmother’s…I think he had two Thanksgivings as well though!

The whole gang.  One of the more unusual things we ate was yorkshire puddings that my friend Sally made.  She is from Australia.

This was in the days before digital cameras, so these are all the pictures I could find online!  I didn’t take nearly as many pictures back then (I suppose most people didn’t) since you had to pay to have them developed and such, plus you’d have to wait so long anyway.  Crazy to think of how much that has changed in the past few years!

Where were you for Thanksgiving 2003?  I will find some more old pictures for other years, don’t worry!