Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. The combination of feeling thankful and great food is a good one! This year, I won’t be cooking but the NY Grandparents are planning to drive back down and celebrate with us. NY Grandma is a whiz at putting together a bunch of dishes and somehow making them hot all at the same time (an art I haven’t quite mastered). I think I can peel potatoes from the couch though!
So, what is a typical Thanksgiving menu at your house? We usually have the normal stuff plus a few interesting additions each year.
- Turkey
- Gravy – Growing up in the South, we ate giblet gravy. I can’t fathom making that but it was very good!
- Stuffing - I grew up eating “dressing” that was corn bread based. Now, we eat mostly stuffing because that is what Dave likes. Whole Foods makes delicious Thanksgiving stuffing. I did make a pan of dressing last year in addition to the stuffing.
- Mashed potatoes - This is not something I grew up eating at Thanksgiving but I would miss it now.
- Cranberry sauce – Try making it yourself this year. Super easy. I dissolve 1 cup sugar in 1 cup orange juice over low heat and then add a bag of fresh cranberries and cook about 10 minutes until they start popping. That’s it!
- Green bean casserole – The classic one with cream of mushroom soup and fried onions on top.
- Sweet potato casserole – My aunt is always in charge of the sweet potatoes. She makes this ridiculously amazing casserole with pecans and marshmallows and a crumb topping. Now I make it.
- Rolls – My mom always makes homemade rolls.
- Fruit salad – My mom also always makes fruit salad with grapes, oranges, bananas, and apples.
- Butternut squash – My mother-in-law introduced me to butternut squash and this is my favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner. She mashes it with a little butter and sugar.
- Creamed onions – Tiny boiler onions in a cream sauce.
- Peas and mushrooms – Another aunt always makes peas and mushrooms in a cream sauce. I love that dish!
- Collard greens – Last year a friend brought over southern collard greens at Thanksgiving and I ate and ate and ate them!
- Green salad – I love salad and always like to have one on the table with a special dinner. Usually it gets overlooked in lieu of all the fattening stuff listed above but I eat it!
- Apple pie – Dave’s favorite! I don’t recall having apple pie as a kid. We mostly had pecan pie.
- Pumpkin pie – Not my favorite or Dave’s favorite but you have to have pumpkin pie, right?
- Sweet tea.
No wonder we feel a little sick after Thanksgiving dinner! Total gluttony. Maybe this year we ought to just stick with turkey and salad! 
(NY Grandma, you do not need to make all of the above! I was just listing out some of my favorites. And we can always do a bunch of Whole Foods side dishes!)
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Carmen update: Last night Carmen’s heart rate was very low, in the 40s and 50s. Her temperature was 92. The nurse put two heating pads, fleece pants, long-sleeved T-shirt, fuzzy socks, mittens, a hat, and probably 6 blankets on Carmen. This morning, she swung the other way and now her heart rate is in the 140s and she seems to be brewing a fever. Besides the temperature fluctuations, Carmen is doing OK. I’ve heard that temperature fluctuations are a typical problem in Tay Sachs children because the brain stops being able to control temperature.
Baby Hope and me: Dave took me to the high risk doctor yesterday and everything appears stable. I am 27 1/2 weeks pregnant and hopefully will stay that way for a while! I will continue on strict bed rest with the Terbutaline pump and weekly doctor visits.
Please pray for our friend, Ada, today. She is having triple bypass surgery. She is my MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) mentor and a fabulous lady.
Thank you Dan for the delicious lasagna dinner!
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