Day After

Yesterday was cloudy and windy, all but one hour when the wind died.  That was between the warm-to-hot wind that blew from the SW until sometime around 11 (I was busy, OK?)  so we were all a bit too warm, running around in short-sleeved T-shirts & jeans, doing the prep work for the dinner.   Making dressing, putting turkeys to bed in the roasters, finishing table setting and decoration, putting the ham in the oven,  chatting with early arriving guests while zipping back and forth on these and other things.   Worrying a little that it was going to be too hot in the back room, with 15 people busily eating, unless we turned on the AC and opened all the windows, but there was this cold front due...


We sat down to eat in a room no longer too warm, but cooled just to the comfortable point (and guests were arriving from the cold outdoors.)

Lots of eating and talking ensued, and didn't stop for hours (the eating had pauses, even gaps,  and finally was down to desultory and intermittent nibbling by individuals, who could be found propped against a doorframe with a small plate of something---the talking had no pauses.)

The food guests brought was delicious.   They said the food I cooked was delicious.  This created the happy coincidence of happy cooks on all sides.  Turkey, ham, dressing, gravy, green beans, salad, and various accouterments disappeared...then so did cake and pies.  Lots of pies.  A gracious plenty, as a friend of my mother's used to say, disappeared.   And there was enough, in abundance, that I could have two slices of pumpkin pie for breakfast (it's a vegetable, she says virtuously.)  

Today is clear, deep blue sky, chilly and breezy, and drop-dead gorgeous.   Today is for packaging those leftovers destined for the freezer, and enjoying the ones destined for today's meals.  (We like T-day leftovers.)   Today is for resting (having worked our buns off Wednesday and Thursday--well worth it, but the bodies are stiff and sore.)  Today is for being thankful all over again, for the friends that came and enjoyed themselves where we could share in their enjoyment