Deck the halls!

Well, it's that time of year again! There's a light dusting of snow on the ground, we've got our tree up and all I need is a good dose of "A Christmas Story" to really get in the spirit of the season!

We survived Thanksgiving well enough, even after eating my own stuffing. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I offered to make stuffing, but it sounded like a good idea at the time. Except, oh shoot, I've never made stuffing! Sure sure, I've made Stove Top but really - does that even count?

Being the good little planner that I am, I went to allrecipes.com and found a basic, easy stuffing recipe. Chicken broth, onion, celery, pepper, Peppridge Farms stuffing mix. How can you mess that up? So off to the grocery store I went to stock up on supplies. I decided that I'd make a green bean casserole as well, mainly to save face against my stuffing should it turn disasterous. I've made that tons of times, so we're good!

Things were going okay until I decided that I needed about 20 servings of stuffing and casserole. So there I sit, in the middle of the stuffing aisle with my Dad on the phone, trying to figure out cups vs. servings ratios and if I needed one bag or two. Saftey won out and I bought two bags of stuffing and about 14 cans of green beans. Yea....

Thanksgiving Day roles around and we were told that we weren't eating until 4 that afternoon. So we had a lazy day, watched the parade and the dog show. Then at 2 o'clock my sister in law calls to say that the turkey is done and we can come over any time. WHAT!?!?! I guess I better start on that stuffing! The green bean casserole came out fine like it always does, despite me trying to overload the green beans. The stuffing on the other hand.... I think that Pepperidge Farms ought to put a disclaimer on the bag saying something to the effect of "Warning! There is about 2 cups of pure crumbs in this bag! Move on to the next one!"

Of course I thought we could get the job done with one bag of stuffing. And we did. It was just mainly crumbs and therefore pretty mushy. Trav also did a great job as my sous chef for the day, but the onions and celery he cut up were in rather large chunks. So we had onions and celery with a bit of stuffing thrown in for good measure. In the end, it didn't taste bad. Actually it was rather good. And Trav's Grandma, Memaw, actually complimented it and said we did a good job. So I guess if it gets the "Grandma Seal of Approval" then it was alright!

We also had lots of wine with our dinner (and I do mean "lots"!). What's Thanksgiving dinner without a little wine? We brought a bottle of Rhubarb wine and it was probably the biggest hit of the night. Everyone had a glass! Check out Minnesota's own http://www.winehaven.com for more info. Of course when there is wine, there's always some carnage as well. A wine glass met it's demise by my elbow after dinner. But most of the wine landed on Travis so no harm, no foul! We also had pictures from some of our festivities, but unfortunately they were after all the wine and should be considered blackmail rather than fun, family photos. Ahhh, Thanksgiving!

Now the T. Scofield household has moved on to my favorite holiday, Christmas. All the decorations are up, and our house has taken on a warm and cozy glow. Our task today: Christmas lights on the house. We're going to double team it, so hopefully we both survive! More to come next week!