Many Thanks!

I have much to be thankful for and I won't bore with a big list. Of course I must mention faith, family, friends, and food, but of course, there is so much more. During the month of November I have been giving thanks each day by adding my gratitudes in form of leaves on my tree. 

My tree of gratitude

A New Kind of Thanksgiving

A few people had given me the suggestion of trying some new things at the various holidays this year. Since everything is the "first" without Sam, everything is different whether we try for different or not. At first I couldn't imagine doing things differently, but as it turned out we did do things a little differently. 

First of all I started seeing photos of different foods arranged to look like turkeys. Then my brother Doug suggested we have a turducken! Let me tell you a little more by showing you what we did on our Thanksgiving day.

Isn't that a different way to have turkey?

The photo doesn't do this turkey justice, much cuter in person.

Our token nerd turkey!

Our little appetizer turkey cheese ball, fun and tasty!

Tada! It's turducken!

The turducken is a whole boned turkey, a whole boned duck and a whole boned chicken with stuffing between the layers, then it's rolled all up together. Ours was prepared, cured and roasted by "Augusta" in Oxford, IA. Their establishment is the brainchild of relocated Louisianans, therefore our turducken had a cajun twist with some tasty seasoning and cornbread stuffing. It was a great way to give our Thanksgiving feast another angle. 

Plenty of Tradition

We balanced all this new and different with plenty of traditional dishes. We had corn, green bean casserole, fruit salad, mashed potatoes and gravy, dressing, turkey tail fan rolls, cranberry relish, plenty of pies and oh, yes, even a turkey.

Our turducken was advertised to serve at least 12. Our gathering was going to be closer to 20, so a turkey was also prepared. The turducken would have been enough for 12 if that was all they were eating! We were amply blessed by more than enough to eat!

Tradition mixes with new and different.

Delicious!

More Fun On Friday!

We celebrated Rachel's 23rd birthday at the Iowa State game followed by birthday cake at home that evening. It was a good day (except for the final score and the temperature) and again, it had a different twist, one Sam would have enjoyed.

Happy Birthday, Rachel!

We have celebrated a very nice Thanksgiving and birthday weekend, and I will continue to add leaves to my tree this week. Now I must close because it is time to mix in a little Christmas. I need to get back to the kitchen and cook up my first batch of Christmas caramels. More another day.