A Turkey for Me, Turkey for You...

I am totally working my way to being caught up on blogging and getting to blogging about what has been going on at our house in preparation for Christmas, which is what I really want to blog about. Hoorah! So I am up to Thanksgiving now...the week before Thanksgiving we were treated to class parties in both Adam's and Hailey's classes, though unfortunately I left the camera in the car when we went to Hailey's, and since it had decided to spontaneously downpour at that exact point in time and I was wearing my red flats (super cute but NOT made for running through the rain to the car), there is no photographic evidence that we saw her in her cute pilgrim hat. Oh well.

Adam's class wore headbands with drumsticks on either side of their heads - funny. We ate turkey sandwiches with fruit and cheese puffs (just like the pilgrims) and then listened to them recite a poem and sing a song. It's always a good time to see all the parents trying not to fall off of the tiny kindergarten chairs while they hunch over their plates.

What is he doing?

Hailey's class had stew and cornbread, and they sang a song and performed a play about the first Thanksgiving (actually it was more of a recitation - there was no acting out the parts.) I was happy to see some of the kids with feathers on their headbands - small schools like ours are not concerned with political correctness to the point of insanity. It is something I remember from being in elementary school and having our class Thanksgiving parties (to which parents weren't invited, let alone did they come - parents were not nearly as involved then as they are now. Gotta say as a kid I kind of liked it that way - you were free from the critical eye of your parent when you were at school.) I was an Indian at least one year, and I remember doing war cries by clapping my hand over my mouth repeatedly - what child didn't think this was truly what Indians did? Ah, stereotypes...

For Thanksgiving, we went to my parent's house in Alta. It was a relatively low turnout this year, with just my family, my sister and her husband and two kids plus her daughter's boyfriend, my step-brother and his girlfriend, and my uncle and his roommate. (I realize that may not sound like a low turnout, but Christmas will be insane with all of those mentioned plus my step-mom's father, brother and his girlfriend, and daughter with her new husband and step-daughter.) The Thanksgiving tradition of my step-mom Paula is to take a family photo of whoever comes for Thanksgiving, and that is the picture she includes in her Christmas cards. Over the years she has gotten more and more creative in how she sets up for these pictures, utilizing the natural beauty of the area they live in. I also got some pictures of just my family, but I will not be sharing them at this time due to the fact that if I actually get Christmas cards out this year, those will be the pictures we use. It was a very nice Thanksgiving with all the typical foods, and this year I made my Grandma's cinnamon apples, which no one has made since she died 7 years ago. The recipe was somewhat bare-boned - it only said "red hots, apples, boil in water" - so I had to play with it, and will definitely do it a little different next year, but they turned out yummy anyway.

Failed Christmas picture...that's my husband for you...

My dad, Anna, and me