This is a picture of my two boys, just after our rather large turkey banquet in Palm Springs yesterday. We drove up to Palm Springs on Wednesday morning, spent the night and had dinner at the hotel on Thursday afternoon with my friend Cara and her family.
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| Cara and I |
I used to turn my nose up at eating Thanksgiving dinner out, but let me tell you something. It's awfully nice to sit around and have people clear the plate you're eating from so that you can go back to a different area and load it up again. Afterward, you can walk out of the dining room and into your car and drive back to your house and get into bed. Call me apathetic or Thanksgiving-secular, but it was fantastic.
This is a picture of my parents. My dad will be 77 years old next April, and my mother just turned 74. They're crazy good-looking, right? They've been staying with us for the past week and are going back to Atlanta tomorrow morning. Despite a few fractious political arguments, we had a wonderful time, and I always feel a tad melancholy when they leave.
Oliver insisted on having his photo taken in front of this garish ice sculpture. He was overcome by its fabulousness and decided that when he grows up, he'd like to be an ice carver. I just love my boys' aspirations.
This is the only photo that is halfway decent of my three chickens. Or maybe this one, although Sophie looks tortured (probably appropriately so).
I was hoping for a Christmas card photo, but no go. I've decided that this year (for the first time in eighteen years) I'm not sending Christmas cards. Call me secular.
I'm hoping to be inspired very soon to write a bit more than I've done the past week. How are things your way?
This, hands down, is my favorite Thanksgiving Report of 2012.
ReplyDeleteAnd look- someone has to make those ice sculptures- why not Oliver?
Also- the expressions on Sophie's face pretty much sum up the way I've felt for the past 24 hours.
And then he could deliver them in a mail truck while wearing a special uniform, right?
ReplyDeleteHappy day after to you and yours.
Before heading home in my backyard! Made me smile that you remembered, Denise!
DeleteI loved seeing the pictures. The ice sculpture was gorgeous. Not sure I could ever go out to eat on Thanksgiving. I love cooking to much. However, it would be nice for someone to wait on me and not have a mess to clean up. Glad you had a great weekend.
ReplyDeleteYour whole family is beautiful - your parents, you and Michael and your children. Political arguments can be expected at family gatherings, right? Not fun, but not surprising. I am cultivating segue ways I can use to derail political discussions and change the subject to something safer (as Gregg likes to say, "Avoid, avoid, avoid").
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad that you had a great holiday - and it's not over! We're recovering from hosting a large meal for dear friends (there were 15 of us). Dishes are done but we have a lot of cleaning to yet do, so...we went to see "Skyfall" today! ;) Got to pace ourselves.
great photos - your parents look amazing! I should be so lucky in my 70s.
ReplyDeleteWe ate, and ate, and ate again. Today my sister and I began the Christmas candy making. Fun but exhausting. Today was the peanut clusters; tomorrow the chocolate coconut balls. Sunday: packaging. Seriously. My sis has been doing this for 26 years. One year they said to heck with it, and boy did they hear from people.
This made me smile, and yes, your parents are crazy good looking. I see where y'all get it. Geeze.
ReplyDeleteI quite like the picture with Oliver throwin the peace sign. Sophie's expression is how i feel every photo opportunity.
I've only sent Christmas cards one year, and then only because I had an awesome picture of baby Indy screaming open-mouthed, Ayla looking deeply troubled, and a toy grinch leering between them. Merry Friggin' Christmas, they read, which is how I felt that year.
ReplyDeleteYour parents are entirely too good-looking.
The boys look so handsome in their suit coats and Sophie, beautiful as ever. And Oliver is just like Joe ... photo bomber extraordinaire.
ReplyDeleteYou and Cara, so lucky to have each other and your parents,good looking for sure. I love that you were with them this Thanksgiving.
As for things my way. Hectic, crazy, but good.
Oliver in his suit coat looks like my son before he went outside to play after Thanksgiving dinner only to have his sister run back inside and report that he had thrown up all over the street. And then on the house next door. And then cam eback inside asking what kind of leftover pie there was (we made him wait until the morning for more pie. Beautiful photos -- I like family pictures that look real instead of everyone having those perfect bows and smiles.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a wonderful Thanksgiving! Food, family and friends...what more can you ask for?
ReplyDeleteEating out for Thanksgiving sounds like a GREAT idea to me! I love the ice sculpture -- and I've also abandoned Christmas cards entirely. (Which is why the post office is bankrupt, but that's just the way it goes, isn't it?!)
ReplyDeletewe don't celebrate thanksgiving as a family because although I effectively live with 4 expats, I know that I alone (the 100% non american) would be the one to cook the turkey. glad you had a good day, hope you get together with your friends and family for christmas dinner too :)
ReplyDeleteI love everything about this post.
ReplyDeleteAnd I won't be calling you anything but clever.
Dinner out for thanksgiving is a great idea. I would do it if I could get support. I think there would be a mutiny though. Your chickens are so cute. And yes, Sophie looks tortured :)
ReplyDeleteI've been patchy with the commenting over and since thanksgiving, but i did want to tell you, back when i read this, how beautiful your parents are and how much i enjoy seeming them here, in the mix with your amazing children. And can i tell you how much I enjoy that Oliver is a boy with passions? love that ice sculpture photo and the way he owns it.
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