It wasn't until Tuesday of last week that Daddy Dave and I realized that Thanksgiving weekend was fast approaching. In a panic, we invited his siblings and their significant others over to have dinner on Saturday evening. His parents are away on holidays and had his mom been around, well, let's just say I would have been WAY more organized for dinner!
Dave had a WONDERFUL idea. He suggested we order the pre-cooked Thanksgiving dinner from Safeway. I, of course, jumped at the opportunity to forsake the daunting task of cooking an entire meal...I wanted to "cheat". In my humble defense, the kids and I have been fighting a ferocious cold & cooking was the last thing on my mind. Why did we invited the family over then? It WAS Thanksgiving and being with family is important.
Anyways, I had to call 3 Safeway's before I was able to "secure" our Thanksgiving meal. I was quite excited as I was sure they MUST be delicious if 2 stores had already "sold-out" and at $69.00, it almost guaranteed a delicious meal. Right? (It also made me feel a lot better about "cheating", after all, I wasn't the ONLY one "cheating"! LOL!)
Fast forward to Saturday morning, allow me to take you on a picturesque timeline of what should have been a carefree-stress free Thanksgiving "cooking" day...
TAKE ONE-Early Morning
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9:30am- I thought I had better get to preparing the VERY Little I had to Prepare... |
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| Slow Cooker, Dijon/Pineapple Ham...Easy Peasy! |
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| My Mother-In-Laws Sweet Potato Casserole...Simple! |
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| My Mom's Homemade Stuffing...We had to have SOME family traditions! |
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| Dinner Table Set...Ready to GO!!! |
TAKE TWO- Early Afternoon
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| 12:30 pm The Pre-Cooked Safeway Dinner is Picked Up... |
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| WTH? Seriously?!?! THIS is worth $69.00??? I may not have been soooo upset if it had all been actually defrosted...It was still FROZEN. STIFF! |
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| Into the Oven the FROZEN bird goes. When I looked at the Gravy, I had a BAD feeling so I added my own "broth"...just in case! I was getting a bit STRESSED at this point! |
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| Are THEY for REAL? How was THIS suppose to feed 6 adults & 2 kids? (Those are the mashed potatoes by the way!) I was getting MORE STRESSED as the minutes pass... |
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| I scavenged my kitchen and found one small bag of baby potatoes and I started to boil them up to make MORE mashed potatoes. |
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| I also whipped up a salad and got some frozen veggies ready to go! (Apparently, they forgot to give us the vegetables) |
STAGE THREE- Late Afternoon
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| 2:20pm- Time to "check out" that gravy they sent and get the "other" mashed potatoes ready. |
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| Oh. My. Gawd. Can you say "LUMPY-FATTY" pot of disgusting? Thank heavens I thought to add some "broth" to the turkey roaster so I can make another pot of Gravy! I was OFFICIALLY STRESSED now! |
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| I asked myself- "Too Early for wine?" I answered myself- "Yes. Yes, I do believe it is." |
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| WTH? What ARE those on the left? Oh Right. Those would be the SAFEWAY mashed potatoes. I started implementing some stress management tactics..."Stay calm. Stay calm Ginger! B-R-E-A-T-H" |
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| The stress management techniques were unsuccessful. "Holy $hit! What the? Heat them...they WILL be fine. Just heat them!" |
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| They weren't. Yummy... NOT! Can you say "Lumpy-Runny" potatoes! |
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| 2:45pm- I was now BEYOND STRESSED. I was loosing my mind... |
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| ...so much so that I OPENED the box of wine...but I showed some restraint. I remembered the Hostess Goddess Guide for when things go wrong: "You must FIRST FIX the problems before drinking yourself happy!" |
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| Problem Solved. "You are such a GOOD problem solver Ginger!" (Hey, I had to toot my own horn by this point in the day) I was now beginning to CALM, somewhat... |
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| That Turkey was so DARN small...good thing I thought to buy a Ham! (It was also, totally overdone...LMAO!) I had now come to terms with Thanksgiving Dinner....it was, what it was. |
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| At least the gravy turned out! I felt better as I thought, "Everyone can just smother the rest of the food in the gravy" (Gravy makes everything taste better...doesn't it?!?!) See...I always told you guys that I was a 1/2 full kinda girl! |
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| Hey! I deserved a little drinkie-poo after my "carefree-stress free" cooking day! |
TAKE FOUR- Early Evening...DINNER!
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| All in all, Thanksgiving Dinner was a success. Ok, maybe not a success but not a total disaster! I am so thankful that Dave's family are gracious guests...they raved about the dinner. (A little too much now that I think about..hmmmm.) |
Truth be told, the only thing that kept me "sane" on Saturday was taking all these pictures to share with all of you. I just couldn't imagine that all this "good luck" wasn't meant to be a life lesson for ALL OF US...
If you chose to "cheat" be prepared to deal with disaster after disaster! (AND you can kiss a "carefree-stress free" day good-bye!) LOL!
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS...HAPPY THANKSGIVING MONDAY EVERYONE!
Happy Thanksgiving to you! I just laughed my a$$ off reading this. And I LOVE the mason jar of wine at the end - kind of like a "Ta-Da!!!!'. Thanks for the laughs!
ReplyDeleteKim
http://www.mytwintasticlife.com/
Your family is adorable. I can see just by his energy in the final photo how you fell in love with your hubby. Everybody is so cute!
ReplyDeleteSince we are hosting the family Thanksgiving feast this year, I will heed the warning. Because I wouldn't have the self-control to wait to break into the wine...
ReplyDeleteWe had one of those boxes Safeway Thanksgiving dinners 19 years ago. My mother passed away the month before Thanksgiving and I just could not cook "her" holiday dinner. You gave a very good description of what the food looked like, it looked the same 19 years ago. Maybe wine would have helped.
ReplyDeletenow see that mason jar of wine?
ReplyDeletepin it to a board called "good ideas" or similar and there you go :)
I always say when bad things happen "at least there's a blog post in here somewhere"
But I LOVE YOUR CLOCK!!!!! I may just pin it - HAHAHAHAHA