the essence

I haven't mentioned that I'm doing Thanksgiving this year!!! I'm SO excited about this!

It's our year to spend Thanksgiving with Ray's side of the family & I asked (very hopeful) if we could host. I just love doing things like that. Surprisingly, I've never made a turkey before but I plan to make Megan's "Ugliest Tastiest Upside Down Turkey" with the 22-pound turkey I bought. I'm doing an array of other dishes & his family are bringing a few dishes of their own.

I've already started rolling up napkins with pretty ribbons & planning in my mind exactly what I want the day to be like.

A few years ago we were at my parents for Thanksgiving & going for a walk along the trail. There are houses that back up to the trail & there was this one house that was just so...festive. There was lovely music drifting through the open door, the perfect lighting inside and everyone looked & sounded like they were having fun! It was a picture of comfortable sophistication & I'll admit I stood there for as long as I could without being too obvious watching the party inside. That's exactly what I have in mind.

However, I know that if we plan exactly what we want it pretty much never turns out the way we think it will. So, I'm not foolish enough to think that Thanksgiving will be just like that, but I'm still so excited to make it wonderful for all of us!

My excitement has rubbed off on Ray as he keeps telling me how much he's looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. I think it should be a lot of fun, only about 20 people, but 6 of those being active little kids!