almost a disaster but turned out pretty good. The first turkey which my sister had thawed out in her frig per the directions looked awful when she went to put it in the oven. I had never seen the inside of a turkey look like that that. We decided the best thing to do was just to toss it into the garbage. I don't know if they did not clean it properly or if it was contaminated but it got tossed. So, it is now noon, dinner is a 6. Yikes, luckily the store still had an 18 pound fresh turkey so into the car and picked it up. It turned out great. Just 6 of us so only two pies, the pumpkin from scratch, the cherry from the store and baked. Folks wore their masks while we talked and dished up the food, then my nephew and his two kids went upstairs to dine. Tee, hee. Well covid cases are high here and the nephew did not want us oldsters to get covid even though everyone, including the kids are double vaccinated and us oldsters triple vaccinated. His kids have never minded wearing masks and just wear them. Now that it is cold outside, I think they like wearing them outside too!

We've always made a stuffing that had everything you could think of in it: bread cubes, sausage, raisins, apples, onions, turkey giblets, and lots of butter, turkey broth and herbs. It was fun, but a lot of work on the morning of Thanksgiving. So this time I made something very similar, with maybe a little less butter, and I used packaged stuffing cubes. The giblets were still raw in the bird at the time, so I sneaked in a little bacon instead. I added 3 eggs for the 15 oz package of bread cubes, and then used a round ice cream scoop and baked them on a sheet of parchment paper. I did it a few days early and froze the baked stuffing balls. I let them thaw in the fridge the night before and baked them briefly again while the turkey rested. They were a hit, and I'll be doing it this way from now on. I'm tired of doing the hosting, and ready to pass the baton to one of the younger families, but realistically, that's not likely to happen until I'm 6 ft under, if ever. We have the roomy kitchen and dining room, and I have a lot more time than the younger people with fulltime jobs. I just have to simplify and spread out the projects over several days so that they don't overwhelm me. One of my favorites in recent years is one I call Dumpkin Cake. You make a double batch of pumpkin pie filling, but reduce the canned milk (or buttermilk) by half. Pour it into a pammed 9X13 cake pan, sprinkle dry yellow cake mix over the top, scatter pecans over it, and pour a stick (or more) of melted butter over it. It takes about an hour to bake. The pilgrims would have approved! We have a family member who is diabetic, so the pumpkin part has Splenda and one portion is baked for him without the cake mix and butter in a small casserole. Some of our guests bring beverages and side dishes. It was a simple feast for a small group this time. We had only our kids and one grandson. One son and his family couldn't come because some of them were sick, so that left only 6 people around the table, but we did that 3 nights in a row. Night 2 was leftovers, and night 3 my son and DIL brought BBQ from a restaurant. It was a good time, except we missed the ones who couldn't come and also missed my brothers' families, who had their own smaller gatherings this year. It was much better than last year when we were in the scary few days before DH's heart surgery.