Still the Best

One of these years I'm going to post here a few days after Thanksgiving and begin the post, "Well, that was...okay."

This is not that year.

Would you look at that mostly-smiling collection of tryptophan-stuffed beauties? (Yes, I almost wrote tryptophan-stuffed turkeys, but that was too obvious even for me.) They are beautiful, and if our newlyweds had not blown all their vacation days on a honeymoon in Portugal we would have had almost all of my dad's descendants here. I don't understand why Boy#2 and Lovely Girl#2 would choose to have a few days of privacy and quiet in an Iberian paradise rather than a raucous, carb-loaded day in Kansas, but I guess to each their own.

If you count carefully, you'll see that there are 39 human beings in this photo who are related to each other. You will count three times and say to yourself "MomQueenBee, there are only 38 humans there," but you will be wrong because my photo-averse brother-in-law managed to be in the picture while revealing only his legs. Well  played,  photo-averse brother-in-law.

This photo also doesn't include the seven friends I managed to coerce into joining us--I love this day and these people so much that I can't help but herd everyone I know toward the church fellowship hall where our celebration now happens. There's plenty of room, I tell them, and plates for everyone.  Of course, there's plenty of laughter and a fair share of yelling and more hugs than you can count.

And there are words. Words, words, words. With ages ranging from five months to 92 years, we talk about everything from the  newest trend in toddler footwear ("I love your light-up sneakers!") to the freaky November weather. Only a few topics are out of bounds by unspoken agreement, because we have Many Opinions and we love these people too much for those conversations on this day. 

This is the biggest group to ever attend the Best Day of the Year celebration, and I wildly overestimated the appetites of a group that is made up largely of toddlers and geriatrics. (Did we really need four turkeys? We did not.) Even that was a plus, though: I loved being able to put a box of ZipLoc bags on the table and urge everyone to take some Thanksgiving home for supper.

The over-production also led to the second best day of the year when this was my breakfast:

Leftover sweet potatoes topped with leftover cranberry sauce. In  my defense, that's a bowl of Vitamin A topped with antioxidants, so it's practically health food, especially compared to the next night when  I fed my family turkey and noodles ladled over mashed potatoes and partnered with a basket of dinner rolls.

Carbs on top of carbs with a side of carbs are a sure sign that the curtain should be drawn on the Best Day of the Year, so the rest of the un-freezable left-overs left with the garbage truck and our diets have returned to their normal healthy goals.

If your Best Day of the Year was not this wonderful, please join us next year. We have hugs and plates and food for everyone.

Come, ye thankful people, come.