A week of turkey!

I love the Thanksgiving weekend! Wednesday work closed a little early, so I got to catch an early train home and make several Thanksgiving desserts and wrap a few November birthday presents (Uncle Yon and Matt's mom).

On Thanksgiving, we headed to Carver for Thanksgiving Part One with my family, where we had delicious appetizers (including much-beloved rashers!), debated between watching parades/footballgame/DogShows on television, and had a delicious feast crafted by mom (with a variety of sibling helpers). We also had our "traditional Pilgrim hardtack" (made from a recipe I once had in kindergarten), which no one ever eats except the littlest ones who don't know better or older ones who are stubborn in spite of the taste and texture! Except this year it came out more like "soft-tack" and was actually pretty tasty! I brought down a copy of Pilgrim Migration in which I had bookmarked all of the Pilgrims we where related to - a surprisingly large number! Earlier that morning I had gone through my genealogy program to find which early Plymouth settlers where in our line, and "discovered" (since apparently I had forgotten - even though I do this professionally, its hard to keep track of your thousands of ancestors!) that through out Ramsdell line we were related to John Jenney, who made the original grist mill in Plymouth. Our family has always loved to visit the grist mill and wander its walking paths along the river, we even buy the cornmeal there for our Thanksgiving cornbread, and I have a large photograph hanging in my living room of the gristwheel that I took the summer that we visited with mill with Margie's girls, cousins Maggie, Allie and Chrissy!, so it was neat to have a direct connection to a place with such meaning for our family. We then took our annual hike through the woods and powerlines into Middleboro, and then came back for dessert - my caramel apple trifle! Then Matt and I headed off to Thanksgiving Part II with his family, where we went out for dinner at the Scarlet Oak Tavern. His parents had the turkey feast, but I went with the pumpkin ravioli, which was delicious! It was nice to catch up with them and his aunt Linda and uncle Steve. That's the best part about Thanksgiving, despite the flurry of preparation and work for the serving of the meal - just having that time to relax and share with family!

Friday I met up with Sara and Momoko, friends from Brown, and we caught up with each others lives (Sara's in Texas, Momo in DC), did some Christmas shopping and fought off the crowds of Black Friday! We managed to get some really great deals, though, for our efforts!


Saturday we headed down to Acushnet to surprise my grandmother with having all of her kids and grandkids gather for a hayride to help her choose a Christmas tree as an early birthday present (Nenna turns 80 years this December!) It was a blast to see Nenna and all the cousins, aunts, and uncles, most of whom I only see once or twice a year! Then we surprised Holly with her birthday present and had dinner in Plymouth.

And what does today bring? A chance to relax! Probably a day of pajamas and Christmas decorating in the house, with a possibility of heading to the local Christmas tree farm to get a Christmas tree!