I haven't posted since my online boast about my birthday weekend? That seems impossible. And yet, given a) my track record of irregular posting and b) the fact that not much is going on right now, it also seems entirely believable. I'm just coming off the post-Thanksgiving recovery period. We had turkey day at our house this year. My sister, her husband, their two youngest and my younger brother all came up for the big day and it went swimmingly. It's amazing, however, how much time and planning and effort goes into what basically boils down to 30 minutes of high-speed ingesting and then it's all over. Kind of like that Christmas morning thing with the piles of wrapping paper and everyone kind of dazed, thinking, "Now what?"
I learned a few things, which I will share with you:
- Despite what you might think, four pies for seven people is not too much.
- That said, seven people in a house with one bathroom IS too much.
- I will probably never be able to properly gauge portions of mashed potatoes. I always make enough for a small army.
May those nuggets of wisdom make future holidays smoother at your house.
I have to say that I immensely enjoyed being the host for this year's dinner. I love our little house and our little life here in Ann Arbor and it's so nice to be able to share that with people -- and so nice that people want to share it. We played games and enjoyed a seemingly endless fire in the fireplace and had some friends over Friday night. We wandered the shops downtown and started picking up the first of the stocking stuffers. And we even made what may have been our only misstep -- a trip to Ikea on Saturday. So packed. So stupid.
Everyone left on Saturday, late afternoon, which left us with what felt like a bonus day at the end of the weekend. We made good use of it, too, spending Sunday in full decompression mode, lying on the couch in front of the fire, making a small dent in our DVR backlog (and taking in The Visitor), and watching fat, fluffy snowflakes blanket everything outside. Perfection.