Well, the holiday season has started. Tomorrow is the last day of school for the kids until the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Again, as we did last year, we’ll have guests and have a big Thanksgiving blow-out.

In 2004 and 2005, we ate the November holiday meal in restaurants. In 2004, my brother and sister-in-law, Baby Bro and Bell Woman, invited us to Ohio for Thanksgiving. As they lived in an apartment at the time and Country Lady (my mom) was also going to be there from Pennsylvania, they took us to Cracker Barrel for the meal. Not exactly a Norman Rockwell holiday. Add to this that the cranberries and sweet potatoes had oranges in them that aggravated Beloved’s allergies (as did Baby and Bell’s cat!), it wasn’t a perfect Thanksgiving.

In 2005, we’d just moved to Baton Rouge and discovered that the Girl had the whole week off (the Boy wasn’t in school yet) so Beloved took it off, too and we went to Orlando to visit Universal Studios. While that was fun and a great vacation, we ate the Thanksgiving meal at a Golden Corral.

So, it made sense that last year, Beloved announced that he wanted a traditional meal with five side dishes (five people would be eating – our family and one guest!), two kinds of pie, a HUGE turkey and rolls and all that. He missed a family holiday.

This year I decided to suggest that we pare down a little but as I brought the subject up he told me he’d invited three people from work and wanted the same blow-out meal. We found turkeys at our local Winn-Dixie for 49 cents a pound and he picked up a 22 pound bird! At that price, I went back later in the week and got a 14 pound one to stick in the freezer.

I’d love some side dish recipes if anyone out there has any great ones.

If you’re interested in how this affects my weight loss journey, check out my other blog.