The Morning After (Thanksgiving)

Mary and Her Boy

Bella, Tommy and Marlena

Mary and Tommy

Mary with her Dad, Frank

Up at 6:20, to a partly cloudy sky, some sun and cold, thirty two degrees, quite a difference here from Chautauqua where it's forty seven.  A cold front came in last night and though it's going to be in the thirties most of the day, it will be sunny.  Our favorite kind of day, cool or cold and sunny!

It's hard to say anything original about yesterday, just another Thanksgiving, of prepping for dinner, a walk, lots of food and eating through out the day, football of course, family, both ours and Mary's, and by the end of the day, that feeling of having eaten too much but happy nonetheless.  Most people agree with me that Thanksgiving is the best, none of the commercialism and pressure of Christmas (I know the grandchildren will disagree), just family and great food.  Half of the fun is the preparation of  the turkey and all the sides, if it's done as a family.  I am sure it's no fun if you have to do everything yourself. It starts with buying all the stuff for the big day, which Mary and Tom had done early in the week.  Then, Evie brined the turkey, and fried and simmered  the turkey innards on  Wednesday.  Fortunately, Mary's Mom made the pies and green bean casseroles, so we did not have to worry about that.  About noon, Evie put the turkey in the oven and made the fresh cranberry sauce (so easy, just sugar water, fresh berries, orange juice and a  boil for five minutes). Mary's parents arrived about 1:00 and we sat around talking, watching football, nibbling on pupus, and just enjoying the afternoon until about 3:00.  Then we all got to work.  Tom and Nick cut the potatoes,  trimmed the Brussels sprouts, and Evie braised them. Mary got the rolls ready, and Evie took the turkey out about 3:30.  Mary had already set the table and Marlena had made name tags out of her colorful duck tape.  Tommy and I watched the video on or to carve a turkey.  Tom, then, carved for the first time and easily took the bird apart in stages, plating it perfectly on a platter.  Mary mashed the potatoes, Evie pulled out the dressing and organized all the food on the kitchen counter.  I did some thing, too, filled the wine glasses with some Presecco.

Rose, Evie, and Mary

We filled our plates and sat down to enjoy all the hard work from the previous day or two.  Everything was great, of course, the turkey moist, the sides tasty, the gravy the perfect cover for the potatoes and stuffing and lots was left over for late in the evening.  We talked about our memories of Thanksgiving past, which was fun, and then Mary's Mom got going, regaling us non stop with stories from her youth.  She had all of us, especially the grandchildren giggling and wondering, could this have been true.

The Boys

We held off on the pumpkin pie and cheese cake for about an hour, then gave in though we were still full.  Nick, having been seduced the previous night by a tin roof, passed on the pie and made himself another tin roof with the last of the Blue Bell ice cream.  Later in the evening, he had his pie and cheese cake.   That boy can eat, constantly.  Pumpkin pie always tastes so good, especially with Reddi whip and I always wonder why we don't make it more often, any time of the year.

We sat around talking, playing some scrabble,  the kids Words with Friends on their IPADS, with Evie, her sisters, and their cousins.  Mary's parents went home around 7:30 and round 9:00, we would, one at a time, sneak out to the kitchen, for a roll, another piece of pie, or a turkey sandwich, a bite of dressing, the best part of the day, probably because we feel somewhat guilty at doing something we know we should not be doing...over eating, but it's so good.  Many of us had that uncomfortable feeling of having eaten too much when we went to bed around 10:00 but we were still happy with the great day.

Tom's House, early Morning

Today, we hope to go to the Country Club Plaza, Kansas City's amazing shopping and restaurant  center, about as nice an area as I have seen in any city.  It was the first shopping center in the US designed to accommodate shoppers with automobiles. All the buildings have a Spanish flavor, designed by J. C. Nichols and modeled after the town of Seville, in Spain and was established in 1922. It's about four miles south of downtown Kansas City and covers 55 acres.  The Kansas state line is one mile to the west.  The Plaza is named in the Project for Public Places list as one of the top 60 of Greatest Public Places.

A View from the Country Club Plaza