A Turkey of a W.I.P.

After a slow start, really, after a no-start, we are finally getting it together for Thanksgiving at our house. Most years there are lists of who's coming, who makes what and what to buy long before November's shadow darkens our threshold. This year, well as of last week, we hadn't actually even discussed Thanksgiving in any kind of meaningful way.

So Saturday and Sunday will be all about polishing silverware, ironing tablecloths, choosing recipes and shopping. We'll also be chopping and peeling and stirring and tasting. Mixing and measuring, going up the stairs and back down in a flurry of preparing for the big pig-out day.

We will only be eight people but we are eight people who are pretty demanding about the food we fix and eat. We like to show off with new dishes and we look forward to all the old favorites.

The table should be beautiful and the smells emanating from the kitchen, intoxicating. There will be football on the TV and big band on the radio.

Getting ready for a big meal is so much of the fun. This year I will be making the sweet potatoes, the vegetables, a dessert and an hors'd'oeuvre. Tomorrow I will read through the recipes I have collected and select the ones I have been waiting to test out on this Thanksgiving.

There are beautiful leaves on the ground everywhere and those will be collected to add to the displays of dried flowers and pumpkins already out on the mantle and sideboard and table.


But Saturday night all preparations will cease as the family gathers to see the boy who, seriously, last week looked like this

But today somehow looks like this.

Let me introduce you to Mikey, my grandson, who has the role of "the drunk uncle" in The Philadelphia Story. We'll all be in the audience cheering him on Saturday night. It looks to be a full and pretty fulfilling weekend. What have you all got planned? (Wasn't that a shameless display of grandmotherly devotion?)