Our Thanksgiving Tradition-With a Twist

My husband's family is very, very close-even down to second and third cousins. We have had a tradition for as long as my husband can remember of renting a big hall and bringing all our food. We can have anywhere from 20 to 70 people. We carve our turkeys-2 or 3-make the gravy and give thanks. It's a great time to catch up on relatives who, even though they mostly live in the area, may not have the time to get together during the rest of the year. After the dishes are washed, we bring out the games-the oldsters play Pitch, the kids do Uno or Apples to Apples, and the rest of us gather around our favorite games.

This is when the important part of the day happens: My sister-in-law brings out her homemade popcorn balls, a tradition started the year they were married and didn't have money to make anything else; I open up my homemade Almond Roca, a required offering-I'm not allowed in the building without it; and the rest of the family sets out various other goodies and nuts. We start our celebration about noon, and we play games and snack all afternoon and into the evening. Then someone decides it's time for "Turkey Buns," turkey cut up into gravy and served over my husband Stan's homemade rolls, topped with a big slice of onion! Nobody's hungry but we know it's a precious tradition, so we all make a valiant effort to eat just a bit more.

Then we clean up the hall (for many years it's been the Belgrade Senior Center) and go out into the cold, hugging and promising to "do this more often!"

Our Thanksgiving is the stuff of legend, and anybody is invited-my son's friend from Brocton calls every year to see if it's still on!

This was the story that I submitted to our local TV station.  They decided I won, and turned it into a skit to broadcast on the Friday Evening News.  This is the revised version of our celebration:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=593209107266&oid=94711736971&comments


Hope you all are on Facebook so you can see this!

Vacation Socks and Missing Stuff You Know You Packed

I did do a fair amount of knitting on vacation. It was so therapeutic to sit watching the ocean, binoculars and coffee by my side, happily ticking away at my socks.


I knitted on the plane, too. Just as a precaution I bought bamboo needles on my way out of Bozeman, but it probably wasn't necessary. I asked about it when I checked in and they said that most any knitting needle or crochet hook is allowed. I said, "I guess they think knitters are happy people that don't want to blow up airplanes!" They got a kick out of that.




I tried to show the surroundings when I took the picture of the finished socks. You can kind of see the grass and walkways on the property behind the railing.

Funny thing-I transferred the project to the bamboo needles and tucked the metal needles into one of the checked bags. They have disappeared! They must have gone where the nail clippers went. I needed a clipper, found one in my checked bag and showed it to hubby. He said he hated that one so I dropped it back into the suitcase. I knew exactly where I dropped it and which compartment, but when Hubs decided to use that one anyway I absolutely could not find it! I looked for a couple of days, finally gave up and bought one at the convenience store. That's when I found not only the hated clipper, but when I opened my knitting tool case I found three more! I guess in order to find the metal knitting needles I'll have to buy another set. No big deal the bamboo are really nice and they came in a set of five, just in case I run across a pattern that uses five.