THE CROOKED COTTAGE: THANKSGIVING 2012

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6th, 2012 

Gorgeous flowers my wonderful mother-in-law brought me the day before.

Awww, Autumn. Next to Christmas it's my most favorite time of the year. The weather changes to a "not so humid" comfort level for adorning cozy sweaters, relaxed walks in the woods, cuddling close to bonfires and sipping hot chocolate or whatever beverage one might enjoy ;).

It's a true family time. Always it has been a big family tradition to get with my grandparents aunts, uncles, cousins, pets and so on, most times at our family cottage Crooked Narrows on Mink Lake up north just outside of the southern point of Algonquin Park, but not always. One year we got together at a neighbours cottage, while the boys were putting a new rough on ours. Another year we went to my Aunt Penny's house in Bancroft and another at Aunt Penny and Dons house also in Bancroft. My father and his wife Joan also lived in Bancroft for a while so one year we went there. We have had a family Thanksgiving here at the house a couple of years ago and that was really nice too since my dad was able to join us all the way from Alberta where he and Joan now reside once again. I guess it didn't really matter where we were just as long as we were spending it together.

In August of this year I started thinking and planning for Thanksgiving dinner and all its fixin's and sent out an invite in to my family in hopes of conjuring up some interest of another traditional family Thanksgiving dinner. Not everyone came but I managed to get 17 of us together which was great! I decided to hold it on the Saturday to allow for families to get together with their spouses sides on the Sunday or Monday.

I spent week after week planning, decorating (cleaning, editing) and getting ready for this big event, even going as far as buying used chairs at garage sales all summer long so I would have enough for everyone when the time came. I continuously checked Pinterest for recipes and decorating ideas and collected so much so that I would have to hold Thanksgiving every single weekend for the next six months to actually get a chance to do and try everything that I wanted to.

Well in advance I booked off the Wednesday before hand from work so that I could spend a childless day doing last minute decorating, baking and tending to whatever needed tending to. That didn't work out so well as I came down with a very bad cough, cold and laryngitis which resulted in me staying home from work sick instead on the Tuesday and Wednesday and accomplishing very little. I developed a very bad cough about a week prior which kept me up almost every single night and bedding down on the living room couch propped up trying to get a bit of sleep while trying not to keep the rest of house awake.

All this resulted in Chris and I staying up til 4 in the morning the night before the big day with him cleaning and me trying to get as much food assembled and baked as possible, as I knew I couldn't use the oven the next day with the turkey cooking in it all day. Fortunately my cousin Elizabeth made a huge lot of delicious mashed potatoes and my other cousin Liz made a wonderful ham and some extra stuffing. Cousin Pamela who couldn't attend also sent fabulous salad.

My lack of sleep of course resulted in me becoming even more rundown than I already was and even more sick the day of. HOWEVER, I prevailed, all went well and we ended up having a very nice dinner and wonderful visit with family that I don't get to see often enough, but of course a visit with family is never long enough when you rarely get to see them. After dinner we had planed to have a bonfire but unfortunatly the weather was cold and raining for most of day.
Dispite the setbacks, family is the dearest thing in the world to me and I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat...next year.