YOU GUYS!

Today we hosted our first Thanksgiving as a family.

We have celebrated Thanksgiving together twice before this, but just at other family members’ houses. In fact, I have never personally hosted a Thanksgiving.

We had a wedding on Saturday, out of town, so that threw off general Thanksgiving plans this year and we weren’t quite sure what we were going to do. Within the past couple of weeks wedecided, Hell, why not – let’s host on Thanksgiving Monday.

This is noteworthy not only because I’ve never hosted a Thanksgiving and because we haven’t yet hosted one as a family, but also because our families haven’t met (!). Justan’s mom couldn’t make it as she has moved out of province, but both my parents and Andi’s parents decided they would come – to our surprise. My dad hasn’t even been to this house since Justan and I moved in months ago and we weren’t sure if Andi’s parents would feel comfortable coming to meet the whole crowd.

Well, I’m happy to report it was a raging success! There was a small turkey fiasco (the roaster mysteriously shut off halfway through cooking), but Andi averted that crisis with the help of the barbecue. We all pitched in as a team with Andi and I each cooking about half of the meal (though I must say it’s worth noting that Andi rocked the turkey and stuffing), and Justan doing tons of cleaning and other prep.

All in all we served 16 people, including all eight of us from our family, Andi’s parents, my parents, and Andi’s cousin and her kids and au pair. We had turkey, stuffing, two kinds of potatoes, three kinds of salad, yams, buns, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, pie, cheesecake, coffee, ice cream and of course lots of wine.

Our dads and Andi’s cousin even talked politics and were amiable about it.

Now all our families have met except Justan’s mom & brother and Andi’s parents!

We are pretty proud and thankful tonight. That is a huge load of stress off of us. And yes, it was all delicious.

It’s tough to get even a half-decent photo of this crew, but you get the idea.