The Turner Five: A Turner Thanksgiving

I just realized yesterday that I never posted my Thanksgiving pictures. How in the world I got to be 3 weeks behind is beyond me.

Anyway; without further ado..... I would like to share our Thanksgiving with you.

When the kids were younger we would pack everyone into the car, even the dog, and head to Ohio to see family. As they have gotten older, and I know this sounds ridiculous, they have become increasingly more difficult to travel with. They just can't seem to get along so spending 9 hours confined in a car with them completely turns me off.

So, with that being said, we spent Thanksgiving in Georgia. It's warmer here anyway.

I was excited to use my new dining room set too. I always break out the good china for holidays. I think it's important that the kids learn to eat like "adults" and use good manners. {I try anyway}

I set out all the silverware whether we will be using all of the pieces or not.

I have been looking for these salt and pepper shakers all over the state. I finally have collected 5 sets of them. I would like to get one more set, but 5 was plenty for us. Everybody got to have their own salt and pepper at their place setting. No more reaching across other people to get the salt.

The front glass is called a "Boopie" glass. At least that's what I was old. They belonged to my grandmother and I use them only during holidays.

The gold silverware also belonged to my grandmother. My mother had these pieces for a long time until I claimed them one year when we were up there.

My dining room table centerpiece.

After breakfast I make some appetizers. I always make a Dried Beef Cheese ball for my hubby. This year I also set out some cheese and crackers. We snack on these things until dinner is ready at 3pm. Why 3pm? I don't know, it's just the time I chose for us to sit down and eat.

Everyone gets their "Thanksgiving Gift". It's at their place setting and we open them before dinner.

We always get the same thing..... A Christmas tree decoration. It's fun to see what everyone gets each year and it adds to the decorations for the kids tree. It's become a family tradition and one that we all look forward to.

After opening their gifts it's fine to eat. I hadn't cooked a turkey in about 10 years so my turkey last year didn't look very good. This years turkey, I thought, looked great. More importantly, it tasted great. I usually do very traditional side dishes; stuffing, mashed potatoes etc.... I really couldn't stand the thought of having stuffing this year. It just didn't sound good to me. So instead of stuffing, we had Scalloped Potatoes with Creme Fraiche; Paula Deen's Corn Casserole, which is out of this world, and I made mashed potatoes for the little guy. It's tough having such a picky eater.

Here's the turkey:

Yum!!

And then the scalloped potatoes and corn casserole:

We also had dinner rolls, cranberry sauce and some desserts. When their is only 5 eating, you don't have to make much. We had plenty of leftovers.

We finally get to carve the turkey, which is hubby's job: