Turkey Day!

I hosted Thanksgiving at my house for the first time this year. My mother- and father-in-law (how do you punctuate that? It's not my "mother and father-in-law" is it? Wouldn't that mean my mom and Hubs' dad? ...) came with two of my brothers-in-law, Phil and Nathan. It wasn't my first time cooking turkey, but it was the first time I'd cooked it for anyone but our little family, so the pressure was on.

If you've never done turkey or are intimidated, I would highly recommend the Reynold's Turkey Bag.  There's no need to baste at all; the bag keeps it moist and the clean-up is a breeze!!  This how I have made it each year since the Martha Stewart Debacle of 2007.  Have any of you ever found yourself successful with a Martha Stewart recipe before?!  I am just waiting to hear a success story... from ANYONE.  Martha began her TV talk show right about the time that I began staying home with Pinkalicious.  I had grand aspirations of being the perfect wife and mother now that I could dedicate all my time to it.  The answer was of course to become Martha. [There are many stories to share on this subject, but they are for another time.] Fast forward 2.5 years and it is my first opportunity to cook a Thanksgiving meal for our family of three. Why ask for help from my mom, aunt, or grandma, whose turkeys I have enjoyed all my life, when Jennifer Garner swears on a Martha Stewart recipe for cranberry turkey?  Certainly I will overcome my dislike of cranberries because it's Martha Stewart and when I produce this turkey, beams of light will extend from around my head and my turkey resulting in the first sainted turkey dinner my husband has ever had, and Jennifer Garner and I will become BFFs!  I learned several things from this experience:

1. I don't like standing in front of an open oven every 30 minutes 
2. There isn't time to shower in between cooking and eating a turkey dinner 
3. If you glaze a turkey with cranberry whatevers, it will be in the drippings and therefore the gravy
4. Martha Shmartha. I still don't like cranberry... ESPECIALLY in my gravy 
5. Who in their right mind eats parsnips?!  Why would anyone serve that to people they like?
6. In the end, presentation and method mean nothing if the food isn't what you like to eat

Serving this monstrosity, I discovered that Martha and Jennifer were nowhere to be found and had abandoned me to another crap recipe that The Hubs had to endure.  It was a Thanksgiving of failure and what I had most to be thankful for was a husband with kind words and a large trash can.  Since then, Mom's directions have become my guide, and the Reynolds bag, my trusty tool.

Beyond the food (yes, my brain does get there eventually) we had a nice time with our company. Although, the gifted banana from my father-in-law was ... special.

I'm not sure what this was about.  It was a bit like Jerry and George bringing the bag of oranges to the Japanese.  

The best part of hanging out, for me, was playing the game Balderdash.  The six of us played for a while and then The Hubs and I played with Phil and Nathan later that night.  I laughed SO HARD!!!  In Balderdash, there are strange laws, movie titles, names and words. The object is two-fold; first, to try to determine what the right definition is, and second, to write a definition that other people will think is the right one and vote for.  For example, the movie title we were given was "Weekend with Lulu."  The four choices were:

1. An English adaptation of the existential play "The Theater of the Absurd," where George waits for God.
2. All the circus freight is en route to the next town except Lulu The Dancing Bear.  Leo, a cab driver, does his best to get her there and in the process, makes a friend.
3. When a young man is stranded in the mountains with a psychopath, he is pushed to his limits and must make the hardest choice of all!
4. Planning a romantic escape with his girl, a guy instead finds himself driving around France in an ice cream truck with his mother-in-law.

Can you guess the real plot of the movie? The Hubs wrote #1, I wrote #2, Nathan wrote #3, and the right answer was #4!  Seriously!!  So if someone votes for your answer, you get a point, and if you guess the right answer, you get two points.  One person is in charge of collecting the answers (this round it was Phil) and he would have received three points if no one guessed the right answer.

I love how creative each person can be and how ridiculous the right answer is - we just laughed every time!!! If you're looking for a new group game, I would highly recommend Balderdash!!

Full of laughs, moist turkey, and not a cranberry in sight, it was a wonderful Thanksgiving for us!  I hope yours was wonderful, too!