Thanksgiving---a Week After

I did not, as I promised, tell of our Thanksgiving. The days since we got home on Monday afternoon have been busy, with our own little personal whirlwind to keep us company.

We had a quiet Giving-of-Thanks, with just us of the household and that of our #2 Son---three in each. So we were six at table, five with the new painted burgundy plates and the Mammaw goblets and the quarter-apiece jewel-colored dessert plates. Our high-chair member had her own orange plastic plate, with her first use of the little sterling fork-and-spoon set.

Daughter Caro had done all the decorating downstairs, swagging the little chandelier with a great wreath of silken leaves and hanging grapes in that perfect muscadine bronze---apropos for all us Southern set. The breakfast table which usually serves as the buffet had an Autumn-printed cloth, with gourds and sheaves and pumpkins, and Caro scattered a handful of the leaves all across beneath the glass top; the effect was remarkably 3-D, like looking through a Fifties ViewMaster. People walking by would sometimes reach out a finger to see if a leaf would move.

We ate the old family favorites---Chris' grill-roasted turkey done several hours on the grill that morning; cornbread dressing with two gravies: Giblet, with several chicken livers sauteed in butter, then chopped and added to the thickened stock with the customary bits of soft-boiled egg. And a boat of the liver-less kind, for DDIL and me. A platter of broccoli and cauliflower, steamed, with lemon butter; a plate of devilled eggs and crisp celery hearts; home-canned green beans cooked down low with bacon and chunks of onion, then topped with tiny potatoes. Cranberry sauce---a lovely compote of fresh cranberries, simmered in orange juice with Splenda and a drop of vanilla, with the supremed orange stirred in cold. And of course, the Ocean Spray---though no longer do we cut out both ends of the can and serve it in neat slices---the bottom is ROUND, now, and so we just dig out great clops with a spoon and serve it in its own compote. Chris cannot enjoy Thanksgiving without Ocean Spray. Jellied, not the clumpy kind.

But when we DID serve the cranberry in slices, we used an old silver tomato-server which probably belonged to someone's nice Grandmother---I like to think so. I got it at Goodwill.
DS brought a buttery bowl of creamed corn, which he cut and put into the freezer in August.

We had coconut cream pie and lemon icebox pie and some lovely Danish butter cookies.

So that's the decor and the food. We held hands as Chris asked the blessing, our littlest one calmly holding on, beginning to smile up at him at his first words, and not stopping till we all said, "Amen!" Then she chuckled and nodded enthusiastically, kicking her feet. And we are all thankful; I leave everyone's own gratitude as their own.

Yesterday, I took down and packed away all the gold and yellow and brown and green into its own special box, to await the turning of another season. Last night, we wrestled a bit with the three pieces of the upstairs tree, noted that all lights seemed to be on strike save the very bottom row, decided to buy some strings tomorrow, and left Tree lying beside the sofa, where Kitty will probably make a nest before we get back to it. I had to run the skirt through the dryer on "AIR" three times last year---she just LOVED that thing, and when the packages covered it all over, she somehow shouldered a few out of the way, and would be snoozing away between the boxes.

Moire non,

rachel