“Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes.
Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.”
― Erma Bombeck
We were fortunate to have two Thanksgiving meals again this year, starting at Nina and Papa’s house on Wednesday. The whole family was there, and it was great to see everyone together. The kids played, adults ate, and Nina cried when trying to say how thankful she was that we were together. All in all, it was a great meal and it was a perfect way to start the Thanksgiving holiday.
We took a day off from Thanksgiving meals on Thursday to put out the decorations and decorate the Christmas tree. Ashlyn has a lot of fun hanging the decorations, and James only broke two in the process (when he wasn’t busy throwing ornament stuffing everywhere).
The second Thanksgiving meal was on Friday, and Ashlyn was happy to help Grandma make whipped cream for the pies. A time honored tradition is to give the helping kid the beater with the cream still on it, and Ashlyn was more than obliged to participate. She even gave James a few tastes, but only a few.
After a great meal, it was nap time for everyone, including the kids, Mom, and Grandpa. Just kidding about the kids of course. Ashlyn played with James for a bit and then went off to make a pretend Thanksgiving dinner with toys. James, being James, proceeded to empty the kitchen cabinets. And then he did something that both surprised us and us both nervous. If you look at the picture on the bottom right below, you’ll notice a pepper grinder on the counter above the chair. You’ll notice a rolling chair that James moved from across the room so that he could climb up and get the pepper grinder. You will also notice a stepstool at the foot of the chair, so that James could climb onto the chair and then get the pepper grinder. The ingenuity and planning is interesting for a 16 month old, and it’s making us second guess our home preparedness for James.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I’m off to move breakable things up another level, or maybe to a storage locker miles away from the house. That seems safer.