Thanksgiving! Again!

A s a kid, Thanksgiving for me used to mean bad food, a whole lot of extended family, and sleeping in the storage cellar at a borrowed beach house. Seriously.

We used to gather at my grandparents house on the Oregon coast, all 20 or 30 of us(I honestly don't really know the count and can't be troubled for it right now). My grandmother would throw together the WORST Thanksgiving dinner know to man, think 20 lb turkey in the microwave for 2 hours and vegetables that aren't done unless they're gray. Not nearly enough room in the house for everyone and definitely not enough service, nuked turkey doesn't eat well on it's own, try getting into it with a plastic knife. Also, you're surrounded by a whole bunch of family that you love dearly individually but together it's one big ass clusterfuck. At the end of it all you still don't know what of the five borrowed beach houses you're stuck in and what cousin or sibling you've got to share a twin bed with. What it all boils down to is that Thanksgiving during my childhood sucked. It was never my favorite holiday, and one I never looked forward to.

As I recall, we almost didn't go to Thanksgiving with Paul and Sean two years ago, Michele's not big on new people and I almost got sucked into a family event(again, we love them, but not on Thanksgiving). Holy hell am I glad we went. Thanksgiving has been my favorite holiday since. Amazing, knock you on your ass food, good drinks, and great people. It's the highlight of my gastronomical year, and this year was no different.

Chipotle meatballs, of course.

It's amazing the amount of prep that goes into getting the boy to the party and ensuring that he doesn't get drunk while Michele does. We were successful at that by the way.

The boy was the source of much amusement and surprisingly well behaved all evening.

Here's to next year!

*I would be remiss if I didn't mention that we've had a few pretty damn good Thanksgivings along the way but none quite compare to the last three, which is the whole point.