Buffalo Gal

Another Thanksgiving Day has come to an end and the Cook is ready to go to bed!  I am always the official cook for the holiday dinners and I enjoy it…I love to make home-made dinner rolls, home-made lefse, real mashed potatoes, real gravy from the turkey juices, home-made stuffing with home-grown sage; cranberry relishes and pickled beet relish… for a few things we have for our dinners. One of my good friends is the "Pie Lady" for the holiday dinners so I do not have to think about dessert.  I have some wonderful family members…daughters in law and grandkids who take over the clean-up operations after the meal is over so it makes the cooking even more worthwhile when I do not have to clean up my own mess.  Cooking is fun; cleaning up after yourself is not fun..I came to that conclusion many long years ago when I first started out as the Holiday cook.

After we had stuffed ourselves at the table and done a bit of cleaning up in the kitchen, we bring out the games and have a blast playing things like "Catchphrase",  "Apples To Apples" and a new one this year…"Buzzword".  All of these are games involving words and language so it is stimulating for old and young brains alike.  I enjoy seeing my grandkids take to the word games as much as I do…every year they are word-smarter than the year past. Meanwhile there is some serious football watching and serious cat-napping going on in another room by the adult males in the family.  The natural sleep inducer in turkey meat…tryptophan..kicks in shortly after the meal and the football watching turns into  some "cutting of Zees" as one adult male puts it.

It was such a nice day today that we went outside while it was still light and took a lot of pictures on the digital camera and the "regular" camera.  I am making an 8-picture frame of the grandkids and we got 3 really good photos of the 3 grandkids who were here today. It amazes me how much they grow and mature from year to year.  I am stunned by the beauty of the girls and the handsomeness of the boys; I know I am prejudiced but they are really good looking kids!!!  If I were an 18 year old teenage girl (unrelated)… I would be drooling over the handsome 18 year old who is my grandson!!!  I am eager to get pictures of the other 5 so I can complete my grandchild picture frame to hang up on a wall in some prominent place here at home.  Next summer there will be wedding pictures of the oldest grandchild—-our oldest granddaughter will be married next July….we can barely believe it but it will happen.

Today… and every day… I am so thankful for so many blessings….small ones and great ones, like continuing good health for my husband and me….a comfortable warm home to give us shelter; an abundance of food that would stun many people in other parts of this world; getting up each morning and turning on electric lights;  water, both hot and cold, running from the faucets in our home whenever we need it;  the warmth produced by a good heating system.  How blessed we Americans are!   Our lives our so easy compared with many people in other lands who struggle daily just to live and care for their families.  We take so much of our blessings for granted every day of our lives.

It has been a wonderful day with family and friends.   I forgot to put on my apron that says "Kiss the cook—she is Norwegian" today but that does not matter.  We ate splendidly and enjoyed each other’s company tremendously. The games are put away (til Christmas anyway) The counters and table are clean and neat once again after the huge mess created by a big holiday meal.  The lights are off in the kitchen and one of the family is relaxing and dozing in the recliner in front of the last football game of the day.  The kitty has come out of hiding after hearing the click of dog claws on the kitchen floor from "Otto" our visiting grand- dogger.  It is definitely time to relax and read a bit more from my current book, "Olive Kitteridge" and finally drop off to sleep after a day of great pleasure and thankfulness.