Last night I went to a SCAN holiday gift drive/happy hour, at Sullivans, with Erin and Julie. It had been a while since we had all been out so we were catching up on the holiday stories, travels, and everything else along the way. Erin was mid story, talking about her mother's three days of preparation for their Thanksgiving dinner, when I realized I had never told her about my holiday dinners.
If we were in a movie right now some sad slow song would start playing.
Our holiday meals are catered- yes, catered. Now I know some of you are visualizing handsome men in black suits carrying silver trays to deliver our delicious meal. Ok, I am visualizing it. Unfortunately that is not the case. Instead we order the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, greens, and gravy from a local restaurant in Hampton (yes, Hampton...no, Michael Vick does not go there).
To my mother's credit, I would do the exact same thing as her. We still make a few casseroles (remember?!) but we do not have to spend a huge amount of time on the meal. We usually give her a hard time for doing, however, this year I realized she was simply ahead of the trend! After hours of PerezHilton searching I realized the celebrities like to eat out for Thanksgiving too. Granted they probably have the handsome men in suits.....
Anyways, while we are on the subject, another interesting this happened over Thanksgiving. Though my mother tells me I am wrong, I was sure we always had Thanksgiving "dinner" around 2 o'clock. Planning for a big meal, I decided not to eat that morning before driving down to Hampton. Imagine my surprise when I show up, starving, and my mother informs me dinner is now at 5.
Two thoughts pop into my head: 1. who eats Thanksgiving "dinner" at an actual dinner time, and 2. I am going to starve.
So I immediately run into my kitchen to find one microwavable pepperoni pizza (Gross Dad) and about 3 cans of peanuts. My parents had just returned from a 2 week vacation in the Middle East, which explains why we did not have more (microwaveable) options. Holy Cow, now I am really going to starve. And so an adventure ensues.
I convince my sister to go search for food with me. She was sick, and I had just arrived from Richmond, so naturally we were both in sweatpants, our hair was a mess and we did not have an ounce of make-up on. After about 30 minutes of searching we determined we had two options: 1. 7-11 or 2. Farm Fresh, and so we choose Farm Fresh.
We walk in, grab 3 smartones and head for the checkout counter. Microwavable dinners in hand, looking like we had just run through a wind tunnel, and my sister and her runny nose. Katie was a little embarrassed, but I thought it was entertaining. Not to mention everyone was in a great mood! Countless people had come up to us and said "we hope you have a blessed holiday" and looked at us very lovingly even though we were disheveled messes.
As we were checking out I decided to purchase Katie a balloon for her birthday. It was a giant cow that said "Holy Cow, Another Birthday?!" At this point Katie was about to pass out from starvation and sickness so I gave her the keys to sit in the car.
The man waiting on me asked me what the occasion was and without thinking I replied "I just wanted my sister to have something fun to sit next to her tonight during our Thanksgiving dinner (trying to explain why I chose a cow and not a normal balloon)" As he was looking at my bag of smartones I realized I had unintentionally confirmed his, and every person we encountered, thoughts. Yep, we were definitely orphans. No wonder they were all so nice!
Now that I have gotten off on a very long tangent, my point was pretty simple: I am never going to be a great chef, but as my future Uncle says "when in doubt, hire it out."
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