Thanksgiving, Walton Style

It's hard sometimes to write about holidays in a way that is honest but not whiny. The thing is, even though we are totally happy with the course of our life together, and feel blessed (in a non-cheesy non-hashtaggy way) to have an abundance of loveliness, hilarity, and kids, sometimes working life, love, and family around a medical profession is really hard.

People still get sick and have emergencies and stuff on holidays, so doctors have to be around to take care of that. Not always my Steve-doctor--but sometimes. That means a lot of things--that sometimes he's at work when the rest of us are together, focusing hard on what he's doing so he won't think about what he's missing. That sometimes it's Christmas night and I'm sitting by the Christmas tree, watching White Christmas alone. That sometimes our extended family is all together, 2,000 miles away from us. And this year, it meant that we found out just days before that Steve was going to be working in the MICU on Thanksgiving.

While it made both of us a little heartsick in the background of things, we were glad to have just that little heads up. Because, yeah it's rough and we don't love it--but there's nothing we can do about it. And one thing we've learned over the course of Steve's medical training years is that our attitudes--not work schedules, days off, or even proximity to other people who love us--are the best indicator of how wonderful (or not) a day is going to be. This counts double on holidays, when we feel extra aware of how a-typical our lifestyle is and how very far away we are from so many of the people that we love.

But we don't love wallowing, and we do love eating, so we both decided to suck it up and celebrate whenever he got home, and basically we just decided that no matter what, we'd let that be great.

And then it was!

I mapped out a little meal-prep plan to make sure that Thanksgiving day (when I'd be home cooking and solo with all three of our kiddos) would be low-stress. (Because if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy--and I'd like them to be happy on holidays because: memories. Also I love them.)

So I made mashed potatoes on Monday, homemade applesauce on Tuesday, and on Wednesday Steve prepped all the ribs for me so they would be marinated and ready to go on Thursday.

6:30am on Thanksgiving morning, Steve was in his saturated seafoam-green hospital-issue scrubs and off to work. The kids got up around seven, and we started the day slowly. They played and we ate breakfast, and once everyone was fed and happy, I asked Gracie if she'd like to help with the rolls.

She was thrilled.

I'm not naturally super comfortable in the kitchen (I didn't learn to make more than a batch of brownies or some pasta on my own until Steve started med school!) and I'm usually cooking under a deadline that involves my hungry little people clamoring for their dinner. (Stressful.) So even though she asks to help a lot, my Gracie girl doesn't get to clock a lot of time chefing.

It was great to have a long stretch of morning to bake with her while Charlie and Jules played. I was relaxed because we had plenty of time and nowhere to go, and nothing on the agenda except snack time at 10:30. I even set up the camera so I could document--and I'm so glad I did! Look at her ponytail swishing as she gets the mixer ready!

She got really into the process, which was fun to see. I had her read the recipe and talked her through each step, taught her about smoothing the top of her measures when she was baking with the edge of a butterknife, just like my mama taught me. And her smile was electric. :)

She wanted to do all of it--even the messy parts, like shaping the dough into a ball to let it rise. (Also pictured: happy trashcan.)

And of course she did some supervising and taste-testing during the baking and post-baking portions. :)

It was still early in the day when our rolls were done, so while I worked on tidying the kitchen and preparing the rest of the meal, the kids went outside to play on the back hill. Most of that little forest belongs to someone else, but there is a pink survey flag a couple feet in (still standing from when we bought the house) and that yard or so of forest is theirs to roam.

They discovered bugs and Gracie dug up some sticks and plants and a clod of grass to "plant" in her bucket so she could carry her little garden around with her. They dragged some chairs up into the woods, too, so they could better survey their kingdom. I kept looking out at them feeling all warm with gratitude that they have a plot of earth all their own to play in. We longed for them to have a playable backyard for years, and I love seeing them thrill over the outdoors.

I started the ribs (our chosen Thanksgiving dinner because [1] we're not really turkey fans and [2] the one time we tried to cook a turkey was traumatizing) around 2:30 while the kids were having their quiet time, first slow cooking them on a low temperature to get them nice and tender before kicking up the heat in the last hour and slathering them with sauce at 15-minute intervals. They were looking pretty killer even before the final layer went on. 

I grabbed some apples and candles and some leaves from the tree in our front yard and arranged them to decorate our table. For the first time I laid out the good china at the kids places, and gave the bigger two glass champagne flutes for our traditional Martinelli's cider. Their little faces and voices lit up when they discovered that they got to use those. ;)

And while I was setting Juliette's place I thought about how thankful I was to have her sweet little self around. Our babies are so precious to us, and two-year-olds (though spunky) are just so fun. Their tiny voices sharing their every thought and their chubby little fingers holding tiny silverware?

I can't even.

I had just sat the kids in front of Star Wars so I could finish up the last of the dinner preparations, when this guy got home!

Please notice the Mike Wazowski sticker on his name tag, which he placed there himself. He is my favorite person of ever.

The ribs were almost done but not quite, and he was dying of hunger, so he took the opportunity to run out to do our one-and-only piece of not-only Black Friday shopping (why is it happening on Thursday now???) while they finished cooking. When he got back we set up the good camera on the awesome $15 tripod I got from Amazon so we could take pictures of dinner and all five of us could actually be in them!

We all got a little excited about this and had to take a really lot of pictures before Steve and I had even served ourselves (Juliette, on the other hand, had already been working on a roll for a few minutes by the time anyone else even made it to the table).

The silly-face thing wore out for Steve and I (hungry!) before it did for the kids (see background of subsequent picture).

This is basically my favorite meal ever. I think ideally I would have had some fancy salad with cranberries, too, but I didn't feel like making one and nobody else offered. ;) So we had hot-from-the-oven sauce-slathered ribs, chilled homemade applesauce with cinnamon, mashed red russet potatoes, green beans with bacon, and homemade rolls with honey butter. Heaven!

(I ate this exact meal for as many days as possible afterward, until we ran out.)

Then I made Steve take another picture with me.

And Charlie remembered about the camera. :)

The kids wrapped up their meal with some mini-sour-watermelon shark candies. (What?!)

And then we all adjourned to the couch to finish watching Star Wars.

And if all that wasn't enough, I got to this moment at the end the evening with Jules in my lap, when I looked around and realized that we've become kind of a little crowd. Five of us piled on the couch like that. There were enough of us that I didn't feel lonely, even on a holiday, because we are kind of a little party all on our own.

And then Jules said to me with a happy sigh as she watched Chewbacca onscreen, "Wookie's so cute."

Man. Life is cute sometimes, huh? ;)

Happy (late) Thanksgiving. :)