Giving Thanks Sandin Style

In the world of retail the holiday of Thanksgiving seems barely a blip. After the Halloween displays come down it jumps straight to Christmas, which makes me sad. Mainly because we Chicagoans have a really loooong winter ahead of us, and while the holiday season is lovely, fall needs to be fall as long as possible!! But really it's because Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

First there's all the political incorrectness. It's just so fun! Small pox blanket anyone??

Second, there's being full of Thanks. I've got a lot to be thankful for, especially around this time of year as it's my anniversary with Chicago. Two years and we're still in love! And isn't the idea of a holiday completely devoted to counting your blessings a lovely thought?

Thirdly I could count all the crazy sales, but as I do not partake in Black Friday I wont.

So thirdly, and most importantly, it's about the food.

Duh.

Sandins are traditionally un-traditional, but for our Thanksgiving fare we actually pretend to be normal. Of course things end up a bit funny...take our turkey this year for instance. My parents ordered a 15 to 20 lbs turkey from the IGA and ended up with a whopping 27 lb bird! Twenty Seven Pounds of Meat. By my father's calculations (double checked by Mom I'm sure) it would take 8 and a half hours to roast. Almost two bags of stuffing were shoved up its cavity. It took up the whole of the oven. It was as big as my head.

We all came to the table with hearty appetites and barely managed to eat half of it. Though having a 19 yr old male to feed certainly helped!

Our post feast entertainment was watching Dr Karl bemusedly de-meat the bird.

But that didn't take too long so D and I had to entertain ourselves by doing finger tip/dead hangs from the grip tape he put above the door moulding. It's a climbing thing. Of course I am barely tall enough to reach with one hand while D...well, not much of a challenge for him. Do your family members climb doors? Oh, apparently the proper term is 'header moulding'. We have grip tape above our header moulding. Hah.

And then there's the left-overs. Turkey Sammitches. I love it. I never buy lunch meat so its really the only time of year that I'm going to eat a turkey sammitch. And I do it with bells on.

First there's the issue of bread. For some reason we've latched onto sourdough for turkey leftovers, I think there's a story there but I'm not sure what. I like mine toasted, because toast is amazing. Mayo on one piece, cranberry relish on the other. The middle consists of turkey (dark meat), mashed potatoes and perhaps a piece of lettuce. Because you probably need some lettuce by that point...or stuffing if you're not ready to be responsible yet. We take our sammitches seriously, especially Dr K. A remnant of his days lurking in Jersey hoagie shops. You should see him terrorizing the staff at Subway, it's hysterical.

This is his Serious Face.

This is Serious Business.

Ok now it might be 'lintel moulding'. The proper use of architectural terms is also Serious Business. Lintel moulding is both architecturally and structurally correct, we (Dr K) is still searching for the proper vernacular carpentry term. He has books in his office you see...

And on that note I'm declaring an end to the Thanksgiving post. It's after Boxing Day. And my father is reminding me of my duty to the blog reading public. That means you. Are you thank-full??!!