Thanksgiving

It's Thanksgiving weekend and it's been quite enjoyable. The fun started Wednesday evening when I got off work. I met Mr. Darcy in Boulder and we headed down to Denver to catch an indie movie I had been wanting to see. The drive down and back gave us time to talk and catch up with each other about our week and plan for the holiday weekend. The movie was very thought provoking and all-around a great experience, and it was fun to compare notes and thoughts about it. When we got home we went straight to the grocery store to shop for our Thanksgiving feast ingredients. Grocery shopping before Thanksgiving is one of my favorite family traditions. My Dad and I have shared many happy moments strolling the aisles of a grocery store, gathering all the things we would need to make Thanksgiving dinner. I was happy to share this tradition for the first time with my husband. It took us about an hour to get everything we needed and head home to stash all of it. After spending time rearranging the refrigerator and the counters to accommodate our bounty, we set the turkey up to defrost and headed to bed.
Our Thanksgiving day started early with me prepping the turkey to go into the oven. We have a very small kitchen, and it was necessary to do all our cooking and baking in waves in order to get it all done. So, the turkey, being the item that needed to cook the longest, was the first thing to be cooked. It took me some time to get everything ready and then Mr. Darcy helped me season and stuff the turkey and then put it in the oven bag and set it in the oven. The morning scene in our kitchen was quite hilarious and heart-warming, and one I will remember and cherish forever: Me in PJs scurrying about the kitchen adding seasoning to this and that, chopping and mixing ingredients; Mr. Darcy belting Freddy Mercury songs in a high falsetto (he informed me it was the anniversary of Freddy Mercury's death) as he danced from the counter to me and then back again; food in some form or another setting on counters and tables; pots and pans waiting to be used lying about; laughter filling the air at regular intervals.
As the morning progressed our Thanksgiving feast began to take shape. I worked steadily in the kitchen preparing candied yams, baked acorn squash, green bean casserole, turkey gravy, cranberry relish, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, and apple crisp. Mr. Darcy ran to the grocery store to pick up a few items we had overlooked and then worked hard to straighten and clean up the house for our invited guests. By 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon, the house looked incredibly clean, the table was appropriately decorated and set, the food was coming along nicely, and our guests arrived. Our guests were good friends from South Korea and it was the first time they had been a part of a traditional American Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful time sharing our tradition with them and catching up on all the goings on in their lives over the past couple of months. Dinner was served at just after 5 p.m. and as we all gathered around the table with our plates piled high, Mr. Darcy offered a prayer of thanksgiving for all the blessings we had received this past year and hope that the next year would be as blessed. Dinner was truly a feast of good food and we relished each dish with delight. It's not often that my husband and I have the chance to sit and enjoy such rich, delicious food. This was an opportunity we were not going to hasten along; rather we reveled in it, making it last as long as possible. We were stuffed after eating just the main entrees. Dessert was tempting, but we weren't sure where we would put it. It's a good thing it wasn't going anywhere; we could eat it later on in the evening.
After our friends went home, Mr. Darcy built a fire and he and I shared some hot apple cider and pumpkin pie with vanilla ice cream. It was the perfect ending to a perfect Thanksgiving. This was the first year Mr. Darcy and I had Thanksgiving alone, without any family around us. When we first began to realize that money was tight and would not allow us to travel for this holiday, we were a bit wary of what the holiday would be like. Certainly, for Mr. Darcy, this would be his first Thanksgiving without family of any kind around. I wanted to make things extra special for him and I hoped our holiday would be a good one; but I wasn't sure it was going to happen. I am so thankful and grateful that our day together turned out to be better than I had hoped. I think, in some strange, mysterious way, God blessed our Thanksgiving day, making it more than we could have imagined, filling our hearts with the fullness of His love. I hope next year is as good, for this year's Thanksgiving will not be soon forgotten.