Happy Thanksgiving!

I've always thought my fellow Canadians had it right when it comes to Thanksgiving. It just makes so much sense to spread the major holidays out a little more and have Turkey Day in October. Alas, America has yet to realize the greatness of this idea, so due to lack of vacation days and the craziness of traveling with a baby, we decided to stay put this holiday. We were expecting our first Thanksgiving on our own to be kinda lame, but it was actually pretty busy and a lot of fun! 

We started the holiday festivities by making some cards for Claire's grandparents and great-grandparents. I cheated and used her hand-print template from our jack-o-lantern. 

Then, we found out that our new parish throws an annual Thanksgiving dinner for the community. On Wednesday night, I baked three pumpkin pies for church, as well as a pumpkin and pecan for ourselves. On Thursday morning, Adam volunteered at church with some of the kitchen prep.

And then, a friend from play group kindly invited us to their Thanksgiving! It was actually with her extended family, so there were a lot of people there, but everyone was really friendly and welcoming.  Since Claire already knew the kids {a three-year-old and a one-year-old} her stranger anxiety was mostly kept at bay. I have to say, it was pretty nice to enjoy a whole Thanksgiving feast while only contributing a pecan pie! 

Finally, one of Adam's coworkers also had to spend his first Thanksgiving away from home {he's a new grad hire too with the same lack of vacation days problem} so we invited him over for a mini celebration. Although we just had a turkey breast, I followed these really helpful cooking instructions. We technically hosted Thanksgiving at our place last year for Adam's family, but his parents really did the turkey.

On Thursday night, we brined our little guy in salt water.

And on Friday afternoon, we put him in the oven and prepped everything for the sides, which we kept pretty simple since it was just the three of us.

We were really proud of the finished product! I'm not a big stuffing fan, so I loved the idea of roasting veggies with the turkey instead.

Our guest didn't object to wearing a turkey visor, so we'll say he passed the test. {Here's our family wearing them last year and the year before.}

Yum! We made mashed potatoes, broccoli with cheese sauce, and pumpkin pie to accompany our turkey. Adam's co-worker brought sweet potato casserole and apple pie. I'm not embarrassed to admit that we cheated and bought the gravy at Trader Joe's. I am wary of things that have to be done at the last minute and didn't want to try making gravy for the first time during Claire's fussiest time of day.

We hope y'all had a very happy Thanksgiving, too!