If you had spent Thanksgiving at my house

you would have heard the little boy ask, “Can you cut me off a piece of chicken from that turkey?”

Also, the baked sweet potatoes would have been very, very chewy. At my house, there are baked sweet potatoes every year. Not candied yams, or sweet potatoes covered in marshmallows, just plain and simple baked sweet potatoes, topped with butter and powdered sugar. Today, as I bit into the sweet potato — it was so DRY!! It actually had the consistency of wall paper paste; not that I know what that tastes like — but I was finding it difficult to make my mouth move to chew around this mass in my mouth. I kept waiting for that burst of sweetness; and then it dawned on me. This is NOT powdered sugar — this is cornstarch!

So, what else would you find at my house if you joined us for Thanksgiving? Here are some of the things you will find every year, without fail. Like this bowl of bowl of nuts.

There was always a bowl of nuts at Grandma’s house when I was growing up, when everyone looked ten feet tall, and I guessed that the oak staircase at her house was probably at least 4 stories tall.

There will be Lemon Meringue Pie. I make this every year now for my brother. It’s his favorite, and my Mom always made one for him. I see it as my duty to make sure he finds one at the Thanksgiving table every year.

While cooking it this year, I wondered why the pudding wouldn’t thicken — and then I realized that little brown packet of lemon pudding was still unopened, on my counter.

Moving on then, you will have turkey, the oyster stuffing my husband loves that his Mother makes, and of course lots of cornbread. I forgot to make the gravy this year. Everyone was very kind and said they didn’t even miss it. This is our pet turkey, Gobble, made from a grocery bag.

After dinner, those nuts will make another appearance when we play Monopoly using the nuts as hotels. The red plastic pieces are missing, of course.

I never made it to the hotel phase today. The first five times I passed “Go,” I had to pay the $200 to someone else. I went to jail 3 times, and I landed on Boardwalk, owned by my son, who had loaded the joint up with two hotels already. I was, and am always, the shoe. Makes me feel like I’m Mary Poppins or something like that.

The Thanksgiving muse thankfully came and visited me yesterday; allowing me to fly through the house getting all the preparations done, cleaning the house, while still miraculously having time to focus on the kids. I was zooming through chore after chore, almost wondering where all of this invisible help was coming from. I love it when that happens.

The only reason I took the pictures I took today, and I wrote this post today is because of NaBloPoMo. Without this post in my archives for my little ones to read 15 years from now, I doubt they would ever remember the time they bit into a sweet potato that tasted like wall paper paste. For once, I am thankful for NaBloPoMo. It’s all over now; I’m already in my jammies, teeth brushed, and all done.

Hope you all had a wonderful day.