Delayed but still okay

I wrote this 11/23, but I want to get it in. Guess better late than....

We worked Thanksgiving Day to push for the holidays. It's okay, it's what we do. But we will have our Thanksgiving and it will be a true "old-fashioned" one-turkey, dressing, cranberries, peas, squash and of course, pumpkin pie. I started working in restaurants in my college days (and that was a lo-o-o-ong time ago). This meant that holidays were often moved to another day. Couldn't do Thanksgiving on the traditional Thursday, I had 20 or so turkeys to prepare for the crowd. Christmas was moved earlier or later, whatever seemed right. I chose hotels, man, I loved it-but the restaurants were 365 days a year out of necessity. The best part of this was learning the day didn't matter. Explaining to other people was weird, but our holidays weren't to us.
It still is strange: "How was your Thanksgiving?"
"We didn't have it yet."
"You what??!!"

I once did a feature for the Buffalo News on Thanksgiving dinner. I was teaching a class on American cooking at the time and the food editor thought it was a good tie-in. I tested all the recipes multiple times to get them right. Then I did the whole menu like I was preparing it for the paper so I knew I could do it when the real time came. Like a dress rehearsal for food. My family ate it. Then I did it for the "big day" for the interview and photo shoot. My family ate it again. And Thanksgiving? Hey, by now, I can almost do it with my eyes closed, so yup, third time. Lots of turkey, lots of leftovers, that's for sure. If you would like to try this to share the experience, have the same squash soup, succotash, creamed onions, corn muffins, and turkey 3 times in 3 weeks. Overload!

So I'm working on clothes and planning my turkey moves. We had an interesting day yesterday-rain, sleet, hail, then snow. So we pulled out more sweaters, coats, and cold weather gear because we're cold and adjusting to the coming winter. It's fun! We love winter, we love snow. Wish everybody did. Hey, we live near Buffalo. It snows. Deal with it! We do very happily.