Why have a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner when you can have a T-Rex?

During this Thanksgiving the pandemic was raging across the United States and in Arizona.  So, many families decided to celebrate the holiday at home.  Most everyone wanted to cook their own turkey, specifically a small turkey for the perfect small gathering.

The grocery stores were not prepared for this unprecedented rush on small turkeys.  Eight days before Thanksgiving I realized that I could no longer purchase an 8-12 pound turkey and the 10-20 pound turkeys were getting scarce.   So I ordered a medium sized turkey (with home delivery from our local Walmart) and allowed substitutions.  I just wanted any old turkey for our Thanksgiving celebration.

This is what was delivered outside our garage door.....a 25 pound baby T-Rex!

Our so-called "turkey" took up the entire top shelf of our refrigerator:

On Thanksgiving morning at 6 a.m., after letting our T-Rex thaw out in the refrigerator for EIGHT days, I prepared to stuff our baby dinosaur.  He was still a bit frozen!  That’s how big he was.

I added the last of my plum sauce to our stuffing.  I had made this sauce specifically for Thanksgiving turkey stuffing years ago when I had lived on a farm with an orchard that included a wonderful plum tree.

Dan is my Superman so I put him to work.  He did all the heavy lifting. 

I don’t know how his back is, but mine is just fine.  Thank you, Dan, for taking care of me.

I take care of Dan too.  I “let” him wear one of my aprons when he offered to be my sous-chef.  Wasn’t that nice of me?  I don’t think he felt like my Superman while wearing my ruffly apron.

Ten years ago on our first Thanksgiving, Dan gave me his grandmother’s apron.  She had made it from flour sacks.  Here I am wearing my special Grandmother’s apron while making our pumpkin pies.

Dan and I spent the entire day together preparing for our Thanksgiving feast.

I had already made a cranberry/raspberry sauce.  The raspberries helped to sweeten the cranberries, so I was able to use less brown sugar....it is a very tasty sauce!

Dan made the most delicious bean casserole.  This was something that his mother had made every Thanksgiving, but since my mother had made a broccoli casserole I had not tasted bean casserole before Dan introduced it into our Thanksgiving menu.  It will be part of our celebration tradition now forever.....very delicious, and not too heavy or filling so we could eat lots of our T-Rex and pie too!

[Dan here:  Vicky makes plum stuffing, cooks the Turkey just right, makes pumpkin pies.  My contribution was a casserole that had THREE ingredients--all from cans!   And she gave me the recipe to boot.  I opened cans and stirred.  Vicky said I look like a proud little boy....and I agree!!!]

Back to Vicky:

 

I made enough mashed potatoes to feed all of Leisure World.....but, after all, don’t we need enough to match the size of our T-Rex?

This big boy took 6 1/2 hours to cook!  But he sure looks tasty and we sure are hungry after smelling him roasting all day long.

Finally done!

The gravy is simmering and all was ready for our feast:

Pumpkin pie with ice cream....I had trouble finding Dan’s pie under his mounds of ice cream.

This is the view out our window that we get to enjoy everyday from our beautiful home, Nuestra Casa!  But we particularly marveled at what a beautiful place we live in as we celebrated Thanksgiving this year.

We look forward to the day when the pandemic is over and we can see our family, our children, and grandchildren.  We miss them all so very much.  It hurts us inside everyday.

We spent every minute together on our 10th Thanksgiving Day.  The entire day was just wonderful.  We thought of Thanksgivings past and talked about all that we are thankful for. 

We are so very thankful for our family, children, and grandchildren.  We are thankful that all those we love are well and that we are healthy.  We are thankful for each other, the days and nights that we share, and our life together. We are thankful for the love that we feel for each other.  

We certainly have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving and every day.