Happy Thanksgiving!

{Etsy art}

We have much to be thankful for and we shared those thoughts during our husband/dad cooked breakfast this morning.  It is a joy to be alive and feel the fresh, freezing Midwest air fill your lungs as you lope from house to car.  I also said a few blessings this morning as I curled warmly under the blankets this morning as I slept and read until about 9:30.  Glorious.  I'm always sleepy as I just don't get enough sleep anymore.  And I'm in the middle of a good book and it's tough to put it down even as my eyelids blink shut repeatedly.  Holling Hoodhood has just read The Tempest with Mrs. Baker and the cream puffs just devoured by the two escaped rats in The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt so you can see my sleeping/reading dilemma this morning.

All I'm trying to say is the day has started off luxuriously just as Thanksgiving should be.  We did watch a little of the Macy's parade as we devoured the breakfast (biscuits with fruit jam, local bacon, scrambled brown eggs, and orange juice) and then we cleaned.  Yes, we cleaned our family room.  When you work full-time and don't have a full-time maid to help you keep up with it; it all kind of settles and clutters around this main area of space.  We did it together and got it polished up in about an hour.  The table is all clear and ready for our food spread.

We are very untraditional when it comes to our holiday meals.  We don't care what others are consuming (turkey) and even though I have brined and roasted a lovely organic bird a time or two for large family gatherings it wasn't going to happen this year.  We have a perfect piece of Alaskan salmon as our main fare accompanied by sweet potatoes, a tossed green salad, and fresh cranberries cooked to pop with drizzles of maple syrup, honey, and orange zest.   A glorious meal of favorite food for the three of us to share.  I wish I still had some brussel sprouts to roast-they would be perfect also.

What's on your menu?

Sometime we've gone to a movie on Thanksgiving night but tonight we have tickets to a volleyball tournament hosted at our local university.  I don't like to see anybody work  on a holiday such as this but it will be fun to watch two top teams compete.  Better than football for me.

Wednesday I had two opportunities to read my favorite Thanksgiving picture book, A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting, which has Mr. Moose off looking for a turkey who gets to join in the holiday meal instead of the main course. Kids always love this surprise ending and it shares the grand idea that who you are eating with is far more important than what you are eating!

Enjoy!  Happy Thanksgiving.