Homey Thanksgiving

Patrick and I were graced with the presence of our first visitor a bit earlier than expected, since my dad flew here for Thanksgiving as a nearly last-minute surprise! It was the first time I didn't have Mom around to serve the traditional dinner, so I was kitchen manager and handled most of the meal!

Planning on just the 3 of us, I didn't want to buy a whole bird. I searched the grocery store for a roast-sized lump of breast meat, thinking that would be about perfect. I finally thought I found what I was looking for when I visited the freezer department (no "bone-in" label on the package) and chose the smallest one I could find, at about 3.8lbs.

....however, when I opened the package, the thing had wings, skin and a chest cavity. They chopped off the legs and tore out the guts, and decided "turkey breast" was accurate enough a description. No big deal, except I wondered with the weight including bones and other non-edible parts, whether we'd have enough meat! Especially because we invited a 4th person for dinner. (Patrick's coworker spent the day alone at school, and we couldn't send him home without a proper Thanksgiving supper!)

We managed to have just enough meat for dinner, and leftovers for sandwiches the next day. Everything else turned out well, and by the way my dad & Patrick scarfed down both pies in 36 hours, I think they would have considered dinner a success even if the house had burned down, as long as the pies turned out.

Cranberry muffins and potato-chive pancakes made a tasty Thanksgiving-leftovers-breakfast the next morning to fuel us for a day at Yosemite (pictures to be posted later). We surprised Dad with a literal taste of home. :) I was excited to use those cookie cutters for the first time too!

A day later we were on our way out of town to a Christmas tree lot, but Dad spotted one here in time. We almost chose a 4-footer since that size was much cheaper, but decided for our first tree we'd go aces and get a 6-8 ft. The vendor was really cool and gave us our tree at 50% off for being the first customer of the day! So we spent just a little more than we would've for the small one anyway!

It was a drizzly day so the tree needed to spend some time in our garage drying before we could decorate it. Instead, we headed over to the campus to show Dad where Patrick works.

We got out of there once we realized there may be cause to worry Dad would destroy the place, (or at least our reputations). :P

Sunday we took Dad to lunch at a popular and delicious burger joint. On the way, we pulled over so Dad could get a closer look at some pencil trees. Now you can have a closer look too.


The afternoon was devoted to decorating! The small tree we've used the last few years adds some Christmas cheer to our kitchen & dining room.

I put the lights on thick. One of the strands didn't work so Dad returned it for us and bought some extra boxes. The tree ended up with 6 strands, and it looks great!

The monkeys from our wedding cupcakes and a custom ornament really make this OUR first tree!

Lovely!

We didn't have a topper for our tree, so we used ornaments Patrick made as a child and a decorative window gem I received from my sister a long time ago, to create a herald of angels. After my dad left, I ran across a Patrick the Starfish key-chain he gave me a few years ago, that I just HAD to add. :)

The Thanksgiving holiday was cozy and bright, and we finished it off with a delightful breakfast at a local cafe before driving Dad to the Fresno airport on Monday. Next trip there will be to take Patrick & me home for some more cozy & bright holiday time!