Instead this year I planned a very quite Thanksgiving dinner with Gerard's Parents, My Mom, Anne-Marie, Gerard and myself. At the last minute my sister Joannie called and said she wanted to come to dinner too. So there we go an even 7 people for dinner. Usually I have a house full numbering about 20 or 30 people so I got a small 18 pound bird this year.
I got a call from my sister Joannie at 7:30 am (She works the night shift too in the casino) asking if she could bring someone to dinner. I said of course. Well out went my plans for using the paper napkins and out came the linen ones that I got in the south of France years ago. Thank goodness I have enough dinnerware to seat 150 people. Back to the reason for this post and why I am thankful.
My dinner guest was a young man who is a professional gambler. He has been on the World Series of Poker but not a winner as of yet. I have been assured that he will win it one day. Apparently, he had overheard my sister talking about turkey and having dinner with us. He told her that he had NEVER eaten a Thanksgiving dinner! He did not really understand the whole concept until last night. This young man was originally from the Ukraine and moved here when he was about 12 years old. His family is not close and honestly I thought it was a bit sad that he was willing to spend the day with strangers.
Having dinner with him made me realize how lucky I am to have my weird, crazy family always around me. They drive me nuts and call with problems all day long but I love them. I am lucky that I have the life that I have even though somethings have hurt me on a very large scale. I have a family who is supportive and most of the time a soft, safe place to land when I am hit with hard times. This young man does not. When he left he told me he was overwhelmed with our home and how warm we were to him a perfect stranger.
So even though the day was not what I dreamt it would be or thought it should be with the people who I expected and wanted to be there it turned out that the people who needed to be there were there. I hope and pray that Adrienne was surrounded by her loved ones. I know that she was surrounded by prayer. Hopefully, My baby is being stuffed with turkey too, at least let me dream that for now.
Here is the Turkey!
Me, Mom & Joannie
Joannie & I
I can not even believe that Gerard let me get a picture of him with his parents. Maybe one day he will let me post one of him. I promise I have not made him up! I hope everyone had a GREAT Thanksgiving!
7 comments:
i see...gerard doesn't like his pix posted. i have wondered (not if he was made up :)) but why there never were any pictures of him. it all makes sense. hopefully he will cave one day so we can put a face with a name. your turkey looked delicious. we grilled steak :) my kids don't really like any of the traditional thanksgiving dinner foods so i didn't even bother. we only had me, chris and the girls for dinner so ours was very low key. we used our snowmen plates :) jumped right over the turkey plates. not that i have any of those.
Happy Thanksgiving! That turkey looks delish!!
Happy thanksgiving. I'm glad you were able to share it with your mother and sister. How fun to have an unexpected guest. Those are always fun to have as it does help us appreciate the friends/family we have and are able to share time together during the holidays.
You should upload the picture of Uncle G with his parents and blurr out his face like they do on TV when the TV people do not get permission to show the person's face. I'm glad to hear you had a nice Thanksgiving! In the past couple days I have gotten sum-what of an appetite back and I was thankful that I was able to eat a good portion of dinner!!
I love unexpected guests!-Sometimes those are the most fun times! Sounds like you had a really nice Thanksgiving. Have a great rest of the weekend!
What a special Thanksgiving!
You're so thoughtful, Joy. We had hoped to join you as a family of 4 for Thanksgiving too, but we ended up having a nice day with my family. The weather was perfect for being outside part of the day so Owen got to have some fun playing in the Fall leaves. It was a bittersweet day for me as I had dreamed it to be so different just a few weeks ago... Lily's little Thanksgiving dress is still in her bag with her matching hair bow attached, just too emotional for me to unpack just yet. The day just didn't feel right this year. Although our Lily may not be from New Jersey, we are definitely missing a member of our family. I couldn't help but think about the sweet baby girl we hoped was going to be our daughter though... As Christmas approaches, I have the same heartache as I had hoped it would be so different this year, looking around at all of the little preparations we made for Lily. This holiday season, I am so thankful for Jim and Owen and for our family and friends and so thankful to have you as a friend.
Big hugs to you,
Adrienne
PS Tell Gerard I came all the way to Jersey to meet him and still haven't even seen a picture :) Just one?
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