Thanksgiving: Hindsight

I have returned from my unintentional blogging break. Let's start with a Thanksgiving recap. I don't think the day could have been better. For starters, this was the first time in my six years of cooking Thanksgiving dinner that I felt totally relaxed all day long. I mean, I even did this at some point in the middle of the day:

Oh, that's just me sitting down drinking a glass of champagne and eating some appetizers. Normally at this point in the day I would be sweating and freaking out that everything wasn't going to be ready on time. Instead I was laughing at the stories of Hugh and our favorite visitors, M Cubed.

What's my secret, you ask? Well, my secret is that I took my OCD tendencies to a whole new level this year. Enter the Thanksgiving Timeline:

Also, I took the day off on Wednesday and spent eight hours in the kitchen prepping everything I could make in advance. The result was a lovely, calm, happy day on Thursday.

I've said it before, but Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love the food and the cooking, of course, but I really love the sentiment behind it. A day to give thanks for all that I have to be grateful for? Sign me up.

This is what the best Thanksgiving ever looked like:

The table was set.

Pie was baked.

Dinner was served.

Dinner was eaten. And eaten. And eaten.

Dogs were spoiled.

Snuggle naps were taken with Aunt Mandy. Also, see: dogs were spoiled.

At the end of the day, Fletcher had so much fun with his new bff (finally!), Mitch, that he fell asleep standing up.

Really, the day went exactly how I hoped it would, the food was a hit, and our friends were as funny as they always are. We were reminded again how lucky we are in this little life.

The rest of the weekend was spent eating leftovers, watching the new Harry Potter (so good!), eating more leftovers, sleeping in, and celebrating all we have to be thankful for.

I hope you had a lovely holiday weekend, friends. Only a few weeks until our Christmas vacation begins!