Thanksgiving 2013

Thanksgiving this year was awesome! In June I was getting ready for this new baby of ours and I thought that we should pick a date for his baby blessing in church so that our family could mark their calendars. We decided to bless him on December 1st which would only be a few days after Thanksgiving. With that in mind, we decided to host Thanksgiving here in Huntington Beach. I was not sure how it was going to turn out at all. I've only cooked a turkey once before in college but that's pretty much it.

Thanksgiving morning I put the turkey in the oven roaster and started getting things ready.
I rubbed the outside of the turkey with olive oil and then I seasoned it with an Italian herb seasoning, fresh grated garlic, and salt and pepper. I chopped up half an onion, two carrots, and a celery stick and placed them inside the bird with Italian seasoning as well to keep the moisture in. Then, I cooked it in the roaster oven at 350 degrees for about 4.5 hours.

Mr. Tyrone carving the turkey

To make Thanksgiving fun for the kids I made a turkey vegetable tray and a turkey caramel apple dip. I got the idea for the vegetable tray from Eating with food allergies. Everyone loved it. They were also pretty simple too. Tyrone had to help me with the turkey face on the vegetable tray though. He's much better at artistic stuff than I am.

On the table I used wide wrapping paper that I had found at the dollar store. I had bought brown craft paper at the dollar store a while back but when I went to pick some up they didn't have anymore so I went with the most Thanksgiving looking wrapping paper they had. This was basically the only one that didn't have any sort of Christmas print on it. It worked fine. Then I bought a big roll of ribbon at Sam's Club to tie bows around the back of the chairs. Again, all they had was Christmas ribbon so I went with the most Thanksgiving looking one.

For the table settings I bought napkins at Bed Bath and Beyond. Then, I made some "Give Thanks" burlap napkin rings. I'm not really that good at crafts like this but they ended up turning out really nice. I had a hard time finding the charms to go on the napkin rings like the tutorial shows but I think that just the ribbon looked nice. I got the tutorial from two it yourself.
 
On each plate I placed a small treat bag filled with "acorns." I used a Hershey's kiss, a small nutter butter and a mini chocolate chip held together by peanut butter. I put 6 in each bag. My father in law loved them. He took all the ones that were left on the table and hid them in the bushes. This is not a joke. I'm glad they were a hit.

Overall I think it turned out great! The weather was gorgeous and it was so much fun to have everyone here in Huntington Beach. Our one bedroom apartment was quite squishy at times but no one complained and I think it was nice to have everyone so close. It's going to be hard to say goodbye to this little place. There are a lot of memories here.

The whole family!