48/52 - Thanksgiving

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year, and we had a pretty good sized crew. Since some of the folks weren't arriving until late Thursday night or Friday morning, we shifted the big meal to Friday and took the opportunity to do some advance cooking the day before. We cooked TWO turkeys on Thursday — one right after the other. That left the oven available for everything else on the day of the meal, and they still tasted great reheated for the meal on Friday. (And you can't have too much leftover turkey, right? Turkey and Sweet Potato Hash!)

Oskar napped through the entire meal, giving us an infant-free dining experience, something Corinne really appreciates!

The rest of the weekend was relaxing. Puzzles are often a part of our holiday get togethers with Corinne's family.

Anders re-discovered puzzles this weekend, too! He hadn't done any puzzles in a couple of years and had several that he had never attempted, but over the weekend he built every one of his jigsaw puzzles. He said he had thought puzzles were boring without realizing that you just go up a level in difficulty.

Happy Thanksgiving!

- Mike, Corinne, Anders Rocket and Oskar Eon

Thanksgiving Traditions

Thanksgiving, as always, was full of good food, family and fun. This year's Thanksgiving was centered in Seattle, at the new home of Corinne's cousin Taryn. Tor and Clare, whom we haven't seen since last Christmas, were also in town, along with frequent visitor and fellow Tulsan Loren. All the usual locals (Leif, Donna, Joie, Pete, Reidar, Carol, Jeremie) were there as well.

Corinne must still be riding on the tail of our pie party, because she made 3 different cranberry-based desserts: Cranberry Cream Pie, Rustic Cranberry and Raisin Tarts, and Cranberry Streusel Bars. All were delicious, of course (but the cream pie could have set up more than it did.)

A number of new Thanksgiving items this year qualify for potential Thanksgiving Traditions:

Multi-purpose stuffing. Corinne and I were responsible for making the stuffing this year (actually dressing, because stuffing is evil). After we got past the annual "your dressing versus my dressing" debate - which she won, yet again - we set about to prepare the dish. Since there could have been as many as 18 people for Thanksgiving dinner, we made 3 pans of dressing. The twelve people we did have for dinner only managed to eat 1/2 of one pan, leaving us looking for ways to use the abundance of leftover dressing. Oyster casserole is always a family tradition, but was absent from this year's event. Two problems, one solution: one batch of oysters + one pan of stuffing == the best oyster casserole ever.

Two turkeys. There's nothing worse than finishing Thanksgiving dinner with no leftover turkey. Two turkeys, plenty of leftovers.

Turkey and Sweet Potato Hash. Corinne discovered this recipe in the November issue of Fine Cooking, and it really hit the spot. We prepared a Saturday brunch in which this hash played a starring role. Possible candidate for my "Best Recipes of 2007" list.

Wreath Making. Why buy a wreath when we have a perfectly good forest full of boughs? Before we left for Seattle, we pruned several feet off the bottom of a few of our grand fir, trimmed off the dead branches, and packed them into the back of the car. A girls shopping trip to the craft store plus a few hours of assembly resulted in some beautiful homemade wreathes.

Black Friday. The ladies ventured out shopping on Black Friday and discovered that it's not nearly as crazy as its reputation. Given no particular agendas or goals for the outing, it was quite fun and we found some stellar deals.

Green Bean Casserole from scratch. The old holiday standby, with no canned food involved. Tastes even better the day after.

Beano. 'Nuff said.



Of course we made time for the already established traditions as well: disc (aka frisbee), Super Smash Brothers, and tech support. No family visit is complete without that.

- Mike (& Corinne)

Thanksgiving, pt 3: The Tree

Waiting for a ride to find a tree

So here's an obvious question: where does the owner of a tree farm go to find a Christmas tree? Answer: right out the back door.

Believe it or not, up until shortly before Thanksgiving we weren't even sure if we would get a tree. We generally spend most of the holidays visiting family, so its hard to justify cutting down a tree. On the years when we did get a tree, we usually didn't get much further than putting up lights.

But this year, it's hard to justify NOT having a tree. After all, we have our own house (for the first Christmas ever!); the house has a Great Room with a 20' vaulted ceiling; and we own a former Christmas tree farm. How could we not?

We're trying to make Thanksgiving at our place a new family tradition, so we thought cutting down our Christmas tree would be a fun part of that tradition. So while all of our company was still here, we head out to find our tree.

We did have a criterion that most people probably don't have, though: it had to be a tree that needed to be thinned. Our stands are currently overstocked, and over the next several years we plan to thin out some percentage of the trees to allow the ones that remain to grow faster and stronger. So if we're going to cut down a tree, why not find one that meets two different at once?

Searching for the right tree,
using the pole to gauge the
proper height

Who's that happy girl
with the saw?

Pruning off the lower branches
before cutting


Cutting down the tree


...and carrying it to the truck


The cutting crew

We had plenty of vertical space for our tree, but the limiting factor was going to be the girth. Since there are no double-doors or removable windows into our house, we would have to squeeze any tree through a standard-width door. Luckily for us, overstocked trees generally are a bit skinny. The trunk of any tree we chose would also have to fit into the standard-size Christmas tree stand. But hey, we have thousands of trees to choose from!

On Saturday night before dark, we head out with a crew to find a suitable tree. Since the majority of our trees 15-20 years old, we would be looking for one of the SMALLER trees. It didn't take long to find several good candidates, and we eventually settled on a Grand Fir that met all of the requirements. At a height of 196" (16' 4"), the tree would be a good fit for the Great Room.

Since we were losing the light, we waited until the following day before cutting and hauling the tree back into the house. We laid a tarp on the ground and felled the tree directly into it; grand fir is a soft wood, so the cutting itself didn't take more than about a minute, at most. We wrapped the tree up as tight as we could before loading it onto the truck, to get it as narrow as possible so that it would be easier to get into the house.

Once back at the house, we squared off the base, attached the stand, and managed to squeeze it into the house. An hour or so later, we had the tree standing on its base in the Great Room, supported by two guide wires attached to the window frame. A few hours after that, the tree was back on the ground so that we could put lights on the top. (Next year we'll know!) After another hour, the tree was back up and looking great!

Backing the truck out

This was our tree's
20th year

Bringing it into the house.
It's a tight fit!

The tree, upright.
All 16'4" worth!

We only had three strands of lights for the tree, so we had to call it a day. It would be another few days before we could finish the lights and move on to the ornaments, so that will have to wait for another post.

- Mike (& Corinne)

Thanksgiving, pt 2: The Food

Food. I'll readily admit that I'm a foodie, so it should be no surprise that the Thanksgiving food gets its own post.

Corinne's from scratch
whole wheat rolls.

Thanksgiving is the only holiday I can think of that has such strong associations with food. Would the average American even consider having Thanksgiving without a turkey? And then there are the regional or family traditional dishes: in my own family, creamed pearl onions, turnips and sweet potato marshmallow casserole were "must haves" for Thanksgiving. For the group we were hosting, the unusual tradition item would have to be the oyster casserole. And then of course there's the ongoing debate between Corinne and I over sweet versus savory dressings. (I prefer the former, while she opts for the more conventional latter.) In previous years we have done both versions, even going as far as stuffing both of them into the turkey, each in their own cheesecloth bags so that they didn't mix. This was, of course, before our enlightenment by AB that stuffing is evil. We avoided the issue this year by making a sweeter dressing for the pre-Thanksgiving meal we made with friends the weekend before.

But I digress. We had 10 for the main meal, which is a manageable number. The tricky part, though, is figuring out where to cook everything. We had 4 dishes that required the oven: dressing, oyster casserole, broccoli casserole, and whole wheat dinner rolls. Oh, and let's not forget the turkey - brined, of course. We opted to cook the turkey in an electric roaster that Joie brought from Seattle. It tasted great, but the skin didn't brown as well as it would have in the oven; we think the steam couldn't escape as readily as it does when in the oven. The rest of the items we just sequenced and doubled-up in the oven until everything was ready.

We had lots of leftovers to feed us for the rest of the weekend, which is never a bad thing - particularly when those leftovers involve pie for breakfast.

Oyster casserole

Mashed potatoes

Broccoli casserole

Turkey

The desserts were all made ahead of time, and they were numerous and delicious: Pumpkin pie (x2), Apple pie w/candied ginger, Mincemeat pie, and Sweet Potato cheesecake. (Not pictured: Apple+Cranberry pie, plus several gallons of decaf coffee.)

There's no question that hosting Thanksgiving is a lot of work; many things just can't be made ahead of time. But everything turned out great, and we had a great time. We hope to make this a new Thanksgiving tradition!

- Mike (& Corinne)

Thanksgiving, pt 1: The People

Ah, Thanksgiving. We hosted Thanksgiving this year, and it was such an event for us that I'm going to have to break it up into multiple posts to even attempt to present it here. So we'll start with the people.

The first crew began arriving on Wednesday afternoon, and the last vestiges are yet to leave (Loren returns to Tulsa on Wednesday). We had a maximum of 10 people lodged at our place at any one time, with the largest meal seating capping out at 13 people. In all, we fed or slept 15 people (and 2 dogs and 1 cat) over the course of 3.5 days. We pulled out the fancy dining room table and chairs passed down from Corinne's great-aunt Boom, and with all three leaves installed we always managed to fit everyone at the same table.

Between two futons, one queen airbed, one double airbed, one twin airbed, and one queen-size bed (ours!), we managed to sleep 10, with plenty of floor-space left. Boy, was our Great Room was worth its weight in gold. There were lots of different areas to settle in, and the high ceilings really helped it to feel open, even with a dozen people in it. Our piano, freshly tuned, got some use as well. And there was always a warming fire burning in the wood stove.

As for activities, we did whatever struck our fancy. We took several walks around the property; we slept in; Taryn had help making curtains for her new place; and we even got our ears & brows groomed. And Pete couldn't resist cleaning the cobwebs from the cathedral ceiling by hurling a wet washcloth into the air. He only got it stuck on the ceiling fan twice, but it was actually pretty effective.

Oh, and one last exciting activity: we cut our very own Christmas tree from our own stands! But that is another post...

Despite all of the work that hosting brings with it, we had a blast with everyone! Lots of great food (which will have its own post), games, friends, family, snow, trees. The holidays as they should be!

- Mike (& Corinne)

A Visit from Marnie, Jed, Tara, Jason and Leonids

Boy, some people just won't stay away.

Back in June our friends Tara, Jason, Marnie, Jed (and baby Zoe) came to visit. Apparently our place isn't a half-bad vacation spot, since they were back this past weekend! This time, the excuse they came up with... uh, I mean the reason they came was to watch the Leonid meteor shower; Jason even brought his AstroScan portable telescope to view the stars.

Of course, the weather around here is a little different in November than it is in June; we warned them in advance that we might not see a clear sky during their entire visit. Thankfully, the very first night they were here was perfectly clear, and all 6 of us (minus the baby) laid out in the yard on a tarp, with several sleeping bags to keep us mildly not freezing. We only lasted about an hour before heading back inside, but we did manage to see some spectacular meteors blaze across the sky. Oh, and the Orion Nebula through the telescope. And it's a good thing we took advantage of that first night: every other night was cloudy and/or rainy.

Since this was the weekend just prior to Thanksgiving, we decided to prepare a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving meal, complete with turkey, dressing, cranberry chutney. Why not?

During the less rainy periods when we weren't eating, we enjoyed walking around the property, down to the river, through the trees, etc. We even managed to find a deer skeleton which had been picked clean in amongst the trees.

All kidding aside, at the end of their visit we were all trying to determine when the next visit would be!

- Mike (& Corinne)