Jedi by Knight

Well, we have passed the initiation ceremony: my husband and I hosted our first Thanksgiving this year.  I feel very grown-up.  There are paintings on my walls.  I own wineglasses.  I cooked a turkey.  Hello, adulthood.

We had both of our families over for a noon dinner and it was really lovely.  We put in a lot of hard work to get the house together in the weeks leading up to it, but it was all worth it.  Everyone had a nice time, even my little niece (it was her first Thanksgiving).  I have a lot to be thankful for this year: a good job, house, family that lives near me, and a husband who is my reason to get out of bed every morning (and not just because he puts his cold feet on me!)  I am much happier than I was about this time last year, and I am grateful.

I had a lot of fun decorating.  I made place cards for everyone at the table:

I made these at a scrapbooking retreat recently.  The Creative Memories Border Maker was used to make the cute fence and pumpkins.

For dessert, instead of the traditional pie, I made a pumpkin cheesecake from scratch, which turned out great.  I used the Cheesecake Factory’s recipe here: Cheesecake Factory Pumpkin Cheesecake  To make the pumpkin puree, I cut two little pie pumpkins in half and baked them for about an hour at 350°.  I scooped out the flesh and pureed it with a stick blender (which worked much better than a regular blender).  Everyone loved it!

After dinner my family stayed to take a walk and play a little Carcassonne.  Yesterday I slept in and watched some TV Christmas movies as it snowed outside; my husband had some friends over to play D&D.  I went out to do some shopping, and then really wished I hadn’t.  I went back out today for Small Business Saturday and made some purchases at Wayside Workshop in Aurora and at The Learned Owl in Hudson (one of the few bookstores left in the area).  So, my Christmas shopping is started but definitely not finished!