Friends Thanksgiving

As I mentioned in my post about the train, we had our 7th Annual Friends Thanksgiving this past weekend. Thanksgiving is one of my most favorite holidays and so to be able to celebrate it more than once a year....AWESOME! The tradition started 7 years ago with our friends J and R. S and I invited them to our first apartment and asked that they bring their favorite Thanksgiving dishes. S and I made the turkey and our favorites and we sat down to a nice, quiet dinner. It was wonderful.

This event then became a tradition and grew in numbers. The second year we added our friends S and R and a few others to the table. Each person brought their favorite dish and we started the meal by telling everyone what we were most thankful for.

Over the years the tables have changed but the sentiment is always the same. Our first Friends Thanksgiving with children was a memorable one :) Z was only 2 months old and we also had 11 month old baby O and 19 month old N joining us for their first Friends Thanksgiving. O got to try mashed potatoes for the first time. He was the first to use Z's new highchair and managed to fill the entire deep tray with vomit :) Apparently the mashed potatoes didn't agree with him. My brother in-law, who was not use to being around children, could not get over this disgusting display!

Last year was the most chaotic of Friends Thanksgivings. We had 5 children ranging in ages from 2 months-2 1/2 years old. Our poor friends J and R who don't have children yet were a bit overwhelmed with the chaos. Gone were the years of sipping wine and playing a board game after dinner. We barely made it around the table to share what we were thankful for before the kids started to lose it. It was crazy but fun!

This year we decided to keep things low key. My friend S offered to host it at her house (we had always hosted it before) and I was quick to agree :) The plan was only our three children and then to invite two couples without children. We thought that this might help in keeping the dinner a little more calm and relaxing ;) My friend S bought an 18 pound turkey for dinner only to find out that one couple canceled the night before and the other canceled 40 minutes before! She was much calmer and more understanding than I would have been.

The four of us sat down to a table with food for 8 adults and started to laugh. We toasted each other, shared what we were thankful for and all agreed that even though there was a lot of food...we were so thankful that it was just the four adults and three kids....so much calmer than the year before :) Although we missed the others who have shared our Friends Thanksgiving Table over the years...it was nice to have a nice intimate dinner with good friends and fabulous food! Thanks S and R for a great dinner :)