In everyhting give thanks

I Thessalonians 5:18a



We light this candle on every Thanksgiving day. This is Erik's favorite candle scent. We miss him and his family. I hope they had a good Thanksgiving day at their home.


To save some money, I bought these candles from Jo-Ann with a coupon and wrapped around the old candle glass holders with some fall stems I have. The candles didn't fit as well as I hope they would, so I wrapped them with small pieces of foil at the base before sticking them into the holders.

Christine made this arrangement.

This year I tried something new (actually it is an old method, Robert's mom said that's how she cooked the turkey way back when). I wrapped the 16 pounds turkey with a large maple-syrup-butter-soaked cheese cloth (folded in three layers).

Then filled the bottom of the roaster with chicken broth (also a tip from Robert's mom). She said to just pour in some but I ended up refilling the roaster and basting the bird with almost 3 cartons of the chicken broth. Totally worth it though.

This will serve as a guide for next year's timing.

One of our Thanksgiving traditions - write down in small pieces of papers what we are thankful for... Here they were reading the old writings.

Christine arranged the garland on top of the piano amidst the family photos. I love it!

Prep time started. I had blanched these Brussels sprouts a few days ago and froze them. It cut down a great deal of time for this dish's prep work.

Busy but joyfully cooking over the stove top.

We all got worried when the bird came out all black like this...

However, after removing the black cheese cloth, a nice golden brown skin revealed. It looked great. Lesson learned: Next year, we will reduce the time by 20-30 minutes, double the cheese cloth and rub more maple-syrup-butter under the bird's skin before wrapping it up.

Robert's annual bird carving event. :)

Time to enjoy the meal. This year we added a small square table at the corner. I did not like it though, the food seemed to be so far away... Next year, either get a longer table or add the square table at the end of the main one.

We are thankful for the meal.

And for family time.