What a great Thanksgiving weekend we all had!
Mr. Smith and I try to every year rotate back and forth between his family and my family for Thanksgiving. Due to unforeseen circumstances, we had messed up this balance and have spent the last three years in the 'Chester for Turkey Day. We had plans to stay in Knoxville for the holiday, but then we got word that the New Orleans contingency was headed to Middle Tennessee for Thanksgiving.
We are SO THERE.
I initially was hesitant to intrude because Tom and Suzy just last weekend moved out of Tommy's childhood home after living there for the last quarter century. Combine that with the fact that they lived in the Smith Family Home (built by Tommy's grandfather some time in the 1940s) and had accumulated three generations' worth of crap in the house over the years (I bet I could walk in there and find you Tommy's science project from 2nd grade) I was concerned that the Smiths were a) moving, b) into a brand new, never-lived-in house, c) the weekend before Thanksgiving, d) hosting four house guests from out-of-town, and e) cooking a huge, exhaustive meal all because I had a) invited myself over, and b) brought my own parents because a) they wanted to spend Thanksgiving with us since we'd been gone the last three years, b) wanted to see the new Smith house and c) New Orleans aunts and uncles. (Whew.)
Brave Tom and Suzy took us all on!
mike, lexie, tommy, dipsey, tom, suzy, moi, mickey, herbie, vince and adri say 'gobble, gobble!'
The Rodriguezes, Paceiras, Venables and Smiths all contributed to the feast (I made pie). If you don't know already lemmetella those Wooley women can COOK.
mickey cleans while adri and suzy debate the finer points of making gravy
The stars of the show mirliton and oyster dressing, neither of which I have ever had. I asked for recipes and was handed this cookbook:
who's your mama, are you catholic and can you make a roux? too cute...
I am going to try to make oyster dressing for Christmas, but am told the mirlitons are out of season by the next round of holidays, so I will have to wait and try it next year.
Thank you, Smiths! Not only were you brave enough to take on a whole household during your move in process, but a good time was had by all!
On Saturday, I proved myownself brave by wearing to the UT football game these crazy high heeled boots.
yes they hurt my feet SHUT UP
And SNIFF... last game of the football season...
but what a season it was! causey shows up to watch the vols beat kentucky for the 26th time in a row. yea, we're bowl bound!
Mr. Smith and I like to play this game during football season. It goes something like this: I eat before we leave the house to go to the tailgate. I am not hungry at the tailgate and therefore do not eat. I get hungry during the game and whine to leave the stadium because a) I'm not a huge fan of stadium food and b) it's too expensive (seriously, at one of the hottest football games this fall I went to buy a water and they were sold out. The lady tried to get me to buy a CUP OF TAP WATER for $3.50. That is ridiculous.) Since it was such a nail-biter of the game, I did NOT whine to leave the stadium and sat patiently until everyone was ready to leave of their own accord.
Then I whined to be taken to McDonald's. Mr. Smith complied. AND BUDDY, I SURE AM GLAD HE DID.
look how excited about my happy meal i am! this is even before i opened it and saw what was inside too - i seriously was about to starve to death.
But wait! There's more!!
GASP. there was a hello kitty watch waiting inside my happy meal for me!
BUT WAIT!!! THERE'S MORE!
this is kinda crappy picture but basically it says to pop out hello kitty's bow and stick it on something. the last line is literally, 'the fun is just beginning.'
They ain't just whistlin' Dixie.
WHEEEE!!! WHAT FUN I'M HAVING!
Good times.
Next up, family hour! We head over to Mama and Daddy's after the football game for a visit. Upon arrival, cousin Spencer spied the S'mores making materials I had in tow and asked me for a marshmellow. I asked him to ask his dad if it was ok. He said he wasn't there and I was in charge. So I asked what the marshmellow was worth to him.
As it turns out, the marshmellow wasn't for eating. Well. Not for immediate consumption, that is. He and brother Andy tried to do the grossest things they could to the marshmellow pre-down-the-hatch. To wit:
spencer with marshmellows in his ear and nose. i like how it's stuck up both nostrils.
You may recall that Mr. Smith and I fried a turkey in our backyard last weekend. It was quite dangerous. And thrilling. Mostly thrilling for me because I was not the one who had to put the turkey in the boiling oil. Kristina got some pics to me of the event, and as you can see:
mr. smith was a bit freaked out pre-turkey lowering
The trick is to do it slowly, but who wants to lower something slowly into a vat of boiling oil? I'm more of a 'drop and run' method myself (I panic, remember?)
slowly lowering and preparing to run
And for good reason, because:
i was shrieking to turn off the gas at this point. no one listened and the oil did, in fact, burn off quickly and all was well.
And if you recall also, the turkey was stinkin' GOOD. And since the $40 oil could be reused, Mr. Smith and bought a post-Thanksgiving turkey on sale (15 lbs for $11; quite the steal, I must say) and prepared for an encore at the Venable Casa.
slowly lowering into the oil and preparing to dart out of the way
No need!
minimal spillage, no fire.
I originally thought we learned from our past mistakes with the boiling oil. As it turns out, my neurotic father nerded up our dangerous activity by:
making sure the boiling oil was exactly level and secure
Then we all visited by the fire pit in the Smoking Parlor.
dipsey, rowdy man and mattie all enjoy man time
while the ladies talk about girl things. jenny very appropriately pointed out to auntie suzy that she looked like she was about to jump on a horse and canter away.
Next up, a dance-off rematch was mentioned between me and Andy (for back story, see here). My inner nerdy secretary considered the challenge:
should i, or shouldn't i?
Then I literally and figuratively let down my hair:
let's do this THANG.
Mr. Smith deejay'ed:
dj jazzy tommy
And we all gots DOWN.
i seriously wonder how many years i got left before i go from 'cool auntie megan' to 'nerd alert on high' in their eyes. spencer, andy, max and me shakin' it.
Even Dipsey gets in the action:
shake yo' groove thang, shake yo' groove thang, yeah yeah!
Although I was judged highest in the "technical" category, you could tell who was dancing that night with HEART.
andy seriously has fierce moves. he's like breakdancing meets par cour.
And here we have Max demonstrating his signature move:
he called for everyone's attention and knelt down in a ball. i am going to start practicing this move for my shoo-be-doo-dance debut.
Next day: OH BOY! Although my Santas have been up and out in the house for nearly a month now, we aren't allowed to discuss Christmas until after Thanksgiving. On Sunday, Mr. Smith gave me permission to holiday up the rest of the house! Here are a couple of highlights:
the hand painted, and hand carried on her lap all the way from knoxville to sarasota nativity scene my mama made for me when mr. smith and i first married. the portrait is new this year and the angel didn't fit up against the wall standing behind the baby jesus so i just figured that this year the role of angel will be played by portrait megan hahahaha. i have experience. no really.
he ho ho ho jingle bell i hang on the kitchen door. in addition to lending a festive and merry atmosphere to the kitchen, it also serves another purpose this holiday season: zombie alarm.
Growing up, we had this old fashioned string of bubble lights from my Grandmother Venable. I recall them working as a child, but never as I got older and grew into adulthood. They are true old-fashioned bubble lights and they are SO BEAUTIFUL all lit up. So beautiful that I took them (recall - they do not work) when mother let me take what I wanted from the Venable Christmas collection and moved off on my own because I recalled how pretty they look lit up. New bubble lights you can buy today just do not cut it, for real. These are glass, not plastic and something about that fact makes a difference. When we lived in Atlanta I took the string to an electrician to get fixed but there was nothing he could do about the burned out bulbs and suggested I buy new ones (sigh). They worked that one year, but I had to spend 15 minutes every time I plugged in the tree jiggling the wires to get them to come on. It just wasn't worth it. So I retired them, but could not bring myself to throw them away! This year, I did what I do every year: I open the box DETERMINED to throw them in the trash... and chickened out again. THEY'RE JUST SO PRETTY!!!!!
And then the bubble light in my head went off.
i unscrewed all the bulbs and put them in a vase in the window!!! it's not the same, but hey. it's something. i did manage to throw away the electric string - i figured it was a fire hazard anyway (yes did plug it in yet again this year to see if it worked and no it did not.)
YEA! Wonderful wonderful fun weekend. Oh, and it's official - I started training for the Knoxville Marathon on Sunday! *gulp* I ran five miles on Sunday for my first long run. I hope they all go as well as this one did! But... I'm willing to be notsomuch...
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