Post-Thanksgiving Breakdown

My mom has always hosted the big Thanksgiving family dinner at her house, and for several years now I've been trying to help her out more and more with all the work. I go to her house the day before and help her make a half-dozen or so pies, and I go out early on the day of to help her with all the cooking. I set the table and try to take over organizational aspects so she doesn't have to worry about them. I even help her clean up; well, at least, I help as much as I can make myself do, seeing as how I hate that part. Helping this way for years now led me to think that I wanted to host the holiday at my house this time.

Well, I did host the dinner, and I think everyone had a lot of fun. I invited the in-laws to come to make an addition to my large, raucous family. Everyone got along, nobody brought up politics or religion, and we all sat around eating pie and playing games all night.

On top of being a lot of fun, though, it was a LOT of work. I knew it would be, but I didn't appreciate how much until I actually did the work myself. The biggest hassle was, of course, the turkey. I've assisted in the preparation of turkeys before, but I've never actually done all the heavy lifting myself. Oh, and speaking of heavy lifting, for all you aspiring cooks out there - based on my experience, I would suggest that you not start with a 26-plus pound turkey on your first endeavor. Everything was about 15 pounds harder than it could have been if I had done a turkey half the size.

As much as I complain, everything came out all right. The turkey was juicy thanks to the preparatory brining I did the day before. It even took less time than I thought it would to cook, and we were able to have dinner at the time I we planned for. That is a small miracle of its own. All the side dishes were tasty, and there was enough that everyone went home with plenty of leftovers.

There was one catastrophe, however. This afternoon when I went to the fridge to ravage the leftovers for a post-Thanksgiving feast, the mashed potatoes and gravy I had carefully put in tupperware to keep here were nowhere to be found. I think that in the general chaos of left-over divvying up, someone saw my nicely packaged containers and walked off with them. I'm trying not to assign pernicious intent to this action, but it's really difficult not to do when I didn't have any mashed potatoes today.

Even with the tragedy of the lost leftovers, I think this whole hosting Thanksgiving thing was a success and I enjoyed it. I've always enjoyed throwing parties and having people over, and now I have a house big enough to do some real entertaining. My first experience was exhausting, but I'd definitely do it again. Which is a good thing, seeing as how the boyfriend and I have already volunteered to host another massive dinner party in December. I guess we're just gluttons for punishment.