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.