Our Thanksgiving

Before we’re midway through December and have all but forgotten about Thanksgiving, let me recap real quick: four glorious days off and nowhere we had to be. 

We stayed put over the holiday weekend and it was the best decision. This year, I finally decided to run the “Run to Feed the Hungry” Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. It’s the largest Turkey Trot in the country with almost 28,000 participants. I had contemplated doing that for the last few years and always made excuses. Since the Turkey Trot took place in our new neighborhood and it was supposed to be cold, but dry, I really didn’t have an excuse this time and I am really glad I participated this year. It was fun to see so many people come out on Thanksgiving morning to support a good cause. 

I got back home around 10 a.m., took a nice, long, hot shower, made a big pot of fresh coffee and then started the kitchen shenanigans by taking care of first things first: baking an apple pie.

In the early afternoon, we started preparing our Thanksgiving TurkeyChicken. As side dishes, we had mashed potatoes, gravy, roasted green beans, and delicious apple-cornbread-stuffing this year. I also made some freshly whipped cream to go along with our apple pie.

We set our table – it’s important to me to decorate our table, even if it’s only ‘just us’ – and we had some crackers and cheese while the bird was in the oven. Our little feast was ready around 5 p.m.

It was a nice and cozy day, just the way we like it. Since we don’t have a fireplace anymore, we used  the fake fireplace on our TV to create an extra-cozy atmosphere (and it worked for me!).

On Friday, we got our grocery shopping done (who knew the supermarkets would be empty on Black Friday!), but otherwise I did not do any shopping at all. Are you a Black Friday shopper and scored some good deals?

We had leftovers for dinner and I got some knitting done in the evening.

On Saturday,  I ran out early in the morning to pick up our Holiday Cards and stopped at a couple more stores (Saturdays after Black Fridays are delightfully light when it comes to traffic/store customers). After I came back I pretty much stayed in my lounge pants for the rest of the day. A storm was moving in and it started raining in the afternoon. We did get out our Christmas decorations (yes, we waited until after Thanksgiving). We had some take-out for dinner, lit a candle and also watched our first Christmas movie in an attempt to get into the holiday spirit. (It totally worked.)

On Sunday, I skipped my long run because it was raining non-stop. Light, but steady – just what we need here in California right now. I slept in a little later and then had my usual phone calls with my family. I puttered around the house for the rest of the day and worked on my blog a bit (have you noticed that my website-loading is slow? I am trying to fix it but at this point, I don’t really have any idea what I am doing. )

How was your Thanksgiving? Busy or laid-back like ours?

P.S. Since I am posting this on December, 6 – Happy St. Nicholas Day!