An Early Thanksgiving

I hosted my annual Thanksgiving Dinner a little early this year. I love Thanksgiving. I love the warm cozy feeling I get when I think about the food and the time I can spend with family and friends. Not only the food, but I enjoy the atmosphere. The spicy aroma in the air as I'm preparing the pumpkin pie, the sound of boiling potatoes, popping of cranberries, the smell of sausages and sage all attribute to the warmness and it's somewhat relaxing. Well, so much for that this year! Everyone seemed to enjoy the dinner, but the soiree was way below par... This was by far the worst Thanksgiving I've had in my life... 

Anyways, I won't dwell on the myriad of executions that went wrong. At least the menu was decent. We had turnip soup for starters, citrus miso green salad, honey glazed onions with balsamic vinegar, green bean casserole, roasted vegetables, corn pudding, turkey with onion gravy, cranberry sauce, bread, apple sausage stuffing with sage and celery, pecan pie and pumpkin pie with cinnamon cream. The soup was fantastic I must say. It's by far one of my favorite soups. Will upload the recipe sometime. 

I enjoy celebrating Thanksgiving, spending hours decorating my home and table to create a festive Thanksgiving ambiance, cooking up the perfect turkey feast... In retrospect, I think I worked so hard on Thanksgiving striving for perfection that all I could think about was getting my aching feet up on an ottoman at the end of the day instead of enjoying myself in the process and the company of loved ones. Lesson learned.

This year I decided not to use any flowers for my centerpiece, but used gourds and pumpkins displayed in a decorative urn. The effect was striking. I wanted to also use kumquats, but couldn't find any... This centerpiece is very versatile, you can replace the pumpkins and gourds with some fruits of the season such as pears, persimmon, kumquats, pomegranates. This way, you don't have to spend money on flowers and you can eat the fruits! I think you can even get away with lemons and oranges. Perhaps even better if you include some lady apples with the l&o. Isn't it amazing what you can do with an urn? I highly recommend people to invest in urns! Below is the arrangement I did two years ago for Thanksgiving.