I love the holidays!! I feel like Halloween is the last exit before the insanity known as Thanksgiving to Christmas. My typical holiday thoughts are, “Why do I have to buy ____ another ____ this year when they all ready have a million of them?” “Why does my father continue to refuse to make a freaking Amazon wish list? Does he not know how much time and heartache it would save everyone in the whole stinking world if he would just come out and say, ‘I want this.’?!?!” and “How many toys can I buy the kids before it just seems excessive?” And do not even get me started on buying for my best friend. We are best friends. How hard should it be to buy him something? Well let me tell you, it is impossible. Last year I had this great idea for the perfect gift for him and bought 5 Commodore 64 computers on eBay, had a guy rip them up for the stupid sound chip he likes so much, and then around January 31, his present finally arrived and I cried when I saw that instead of the amazing looking steam punk style clock I was expecting and had described to the guy, I was holding a $5 picture frame with a crappy clock face and 4 of those stupid chips hot glued to the corners of the frame. I did not even give it to him until almost March, and when I did, one of the chips fell off into his hands. Argh. That still gets me fired up!
This year I refuse to get lost in that delirious shuffle. I would like to say that I, the Middle Sister, the infamous Christmas Eve shopper for all gifts that usually finishes shopping on Christmas morning at the Kroger on Walnut Avenue has finished my Christmas shopping all ready. That is right. I am done… except for the kids, which is too much fun to do online. I would like to further this amazing statement by saying that I am putting a strict spending limit on the kids. When Payton turned 2, I went to Learning Express and bought every single age-appropriate toy they had in the store. I am not doing that this year… well I plan on not anyway. I just get carried away sometimes…
Also, next week is Thanksgiving. In the spirit of living simpler, I scaled down the invitee list to 5 and the cooking list to something much more manageable than trying to create every dish I enjoy at my family Thanksgiving where you have 25 people cooking. I am just one person, and I have to reign it in at some point.
So, here is my 2 week countdown to Thanksgiving… much better than last year’s absolute madness. I am pretty excited to accept this challenge for semi-maddness:
This Week:
Finalize the menu. I never pour over a menu like I do when I cook for my friends. They are some picky eaters! Joining me at the table this year are my friends the Smiths, brothers from Washington who can not go home for the holiday, the Gentrys, who are going home for the holiday but will be ready for dinner afterward… or at least Mr. Gentry will be, and my wonderful best friend who is from another country and would not otherwise celebrate Thanksgiving because it is not his holiday. My bestie will eat just about anything I put in front of him. I love to cook for him because we love the same foods and he will try anything I put in front of him, no matter how much it looks like dog poop; long story short, he is not my problem when menu planning, although I like to make soup when he is dining with me and I cannot for the life of me think of a good soup recipe I want to try. The Gentrys are pretty easy to cook for too; he is a vacuum like most men and she is just too darn polite to tell me she does not like Brussels Sprouts so she will eat them anyway. She loves pumpkin pie so I am making one just for her. The Smiths… well… they are… different. Way different. The younger is not so bad; he will at least try new things. The older… well… he is pretty. I have to remind myself of that on holidays when I cook for him. He is a vegetarian who does not eat vegetables. That is not a typo. He also is lactose intolerant and refuses to try new things, does not like anything vinegar (my go to!), mushrooms, or tomatoes. Yeah. “Why invite him over and cook to his specifications?” you may be wondering. I made the decision to cook Thanksgiving dinner last year because it makes me sad that not everyone shares the luxury I do of having family nearby. I wanted to make sure that everyone I know has a family at the holidays, even if it is an adopted one. I choose to make kooky weird food for him because I love him… and his kooky weird food is not that hard to make since it all comes out of cans. So here is my menu… until it changes again. Turkey… should go without saying. I make mine in a crockpot and it is awesome. Stuffing… really fancy too. It comes from an old family recipe that came over the on the Mayflower with the Pilgrims. (AKA: Stove Top). And then there are the normal staples: cranberry sauce (made from scratch with bourbon because seriously, what is not better with bourbon?), corn (of the canned variety, per Mr. Smith’s request), creamed potatoes, black olives (blech! Another Mr. Smith request), endives au gratin, green beans (for me and Mr. Smith), green bean casserole (yep… 2 beans), macaroni and cheese, sweet potato casserole, deviled eggs, sweet potato casserole, broccoli with white sauce, and homemade biscuits. For dessert we will be having flourless chocolate cake, apple pie and pumpkin pie. I found on Pinterest little mini apple pies, and I am totally going that route for both the apple and the pumpkin. It is just so much easier to make,serve, send out leftover, and clean up. WHEW!
Set the table. Thanksgiving is the only day I use my china. I can not wait to pull it out again this year! In my perfect Martha Stewart world, I also make some new placemats for the table, but we will see how much the sewing machine comes out in the next few weeks. Setting the table this week will just be one less thing for me to think about next week when I lose my absolute mind.
Make apple pie filling. I am hoping you can make this in advance and freeze it. If not, I foresee a scrambled run to WalMart on Thanksgiving Day!
Finish all my Home Organization 101 projects. All I really lack are my upstairs bedrooms. They really just need some purging and good, old fashioned deep clean.
Repaint the downstairs bathroom. I do not know what happened with that last can of paint. It was just poorly mixed or something and looks like absolute garbage on my walls. Thankfully that bathroom is a whopping 4′ x 5′ and takes about 30 seconds to paint.
Early Next Week:
Grocery shop. I have most of the stuff all ready, but I will need a bird, wine, eggs, cheese, olives, and endives, as well as wine and other drinks.
Prechop all vegetables. It saves so much time day of!
Take Cheese for a bath. He has gotten pretty smelly the last couple days. Ick!
Day Before:
Thaw turkey and clean it. The benefit of only cooking for 5 omnivores is that I can get a tiny turkey. The cleaning it is the worst part! I have to remind myself mind / matter.
Make cranberry sauce. It is so much better the next day! I just have to remind myself not to drink all the extra bourbon!
Thaw apple pie filling.
Make creamed potatoes. It is so easy to warm it up! I see no reason why I can not just make it the day before. I am having creamed potato stuff bar with bacon, sour cream, Ranch dressing, onions, and cheese since everyone likes theirs different.
Make macaroni and cheese. Once again, it is so much better the next day!
Day Of:
Everything else. Oh geez!
No time like the present! I have to remind myself “I love the holidays! I love the holidays!”
Starring the Middle Sister 
I heart you and youre use of the word “pretty” to describe a man.
You know him! And you should know how much it hurts my heart to serve someone on Thanksgiving (or ever!) green beans, black olives, sliced pickles, and plain mashed potatoes. But when he is able to reach stuff on my top shelf without a stool, all is forgiven ;)