And so the holidays begin!
Nov. 21st, 2010 04:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wwcitizenWe've already started our Thanksgiving with the Fordham Thanksgiving - Matt's college friends - this weekend. This was the 21st year of their tradition and it's a lot of fun. I decorated the house and set up the festive atmosphere while Matt cooked everything. It was REALLY good and everyone got take-home containers FULL of food for lunch tomorrow. I also made little ornaments for each couple (6 couples total) to take home to their families and kids.
Matt's friends are so loving and caring about each other. They each share practically the same stories every year, and it's fun to see their joy in their collective history.
This year, Matt and I thought we had all the planning and preparations in place and we were ahead of the game. I even had the forethought of getting our cleaning lady over yesterday to really dust, vacuum, mop. We all worked today and did a great job! The place looked really good until I started to dress the table (which we set up in the living room, since our dining room table seats only 6 people comfortably). We always set up a buffet on the dining room table. The tablecloths REALLY needed to be ironed; if I hadn't had to take that extra 45 minutes or so (three tablecloths) to do that, everything would have been fine. If everyone had come that was invited, we would have had a total of 21, but coming and going we had 15, including us.
Here are some pictures:
The ornaments:
Matt - to remember next year how he seasoned the turkeys - first in the pan in his hand, then dumping them into the deeper pan for roasting:
Turkeys de-boned - without seasoning, with seasoning, the seasonings, and the bones for gravy stock in the pressure cooker:
Entrance to the condo:
The food (top left clockwise - carrots, roasted de-boned turkey, sausage/apricot/sage stuffing, roasted white & orange pumpkin with butternut squash, regular and truffle-buttered mashed potatoes, and buttered almond steamed green beans):
Matt's chicken lollipops (from the Jacques Pepin chicken de-boning video):
Table spread with ornaments, pumpkin candles (not lit), and decorations:
This is a video of our troop before eating with the traditional toast. Our friend, Greg, always says the toast - even when his wife was having their first when he called to say the prayer and toast:
Matt's friends are so loving and caring about each other. They each share practically the same stories every year, and it's fun to see their joy in their collective history.
This year, Matt and I thought we had all the planning and preparations in place and we were ahead of the game. I even had the forethought of getting our cleaning lady over yesterday to really dust, vacuum, mop. We all worked today and did a great job! The place looked really good until I started to dress the table (which we set up in the living room, since our dining room table seats only 6 people comfortably). We always set up a buffet on the dining room table. The tablecloths REALLY needed to be ironed; if I hadn't had to take that extra 45 minutes or so (three tablecloths) to do that, everything would have been fine. If everyone had come that was invited, we would have had a total of 21, but coming and going we had 15, including us.
Here are some pictures:
The ornaments:
Matt - to remember next year how he seasoned the turkeys - first in the pan in his hand, then dumping them into the deeper pan for roasting:
Turkeys de-boned - without seasoning, with seasoning, the seasonings, and the bones for gravy stock in the pressure cooker:
Entrance to the condo:
The food (top left clockwise - carrots, roasted de-boned turkey, sausage/apricot/sage stuffing, roasted white & orange pumpkin with butternut squash, regular and truffle-buttered mashed potatoes, and buttered almond steamed green beans):
Matt's chicken lollipops (from the Jacques Pepin chicken de-boning video):
Table spread with ornaments, pumpkin candles (not lit), and decorations:
This is a video of our troop before eating with the traditional toast. Our friend, Greg, always says the toast - even when his wife was having their first when he called to say the prayer and toast:
