A COVID Thanksgiving

For the past several years our family has traveled to MN to spend several days with my family over Thanksgiving weekend.  This is always such a special time.  It is hard to believe that Thanksgiving 2019 was the last time I was actually in MN and the last time I saw my Grandma.  As we watched cases rise higher and higher this fall, we knew that Thanksgiving in MN would be very irresponsible and impossible.  It was the sad but obvious conclusion to stay home and celebrate Thanksgiving as a family.  We decided that if we were going to be home, we were going to go all out and have a full Thanksgiving dinner.  I went shopping for a huge stock up trip the Friday before Thanksgiving.  I am thankful I didn't go any later, because the smallest turkey available was 19 pounds!  It needed to begin thawing immediately.  We decided to thaw it at church because it took up a very large amount of space!  

 Each year the "Praise and Pie" service at church is one of our family's favorites.  We love hearing people share what they are thankful for and eating pie together.  This year the service was done entirely online, but people were able to share videos expressing their thanks.  It was so special (and emotional) to see the church family on the video.  We purchased a chocolate pie for Brandon and the kids and I had our traditional apple crisp. We ate the pie while we watched and afterwards.  Thankfully COVID has not denied us of desserts haha.

I called and texted my mom many times to try to figure out how to cook the turkey, another new life experience thanks to COVID.  We decided on cooking it in a Nesco from church.  Yes, living next to our church has endless perks!  I was up very early on the morning of the big day.  I had read so much about all the steps to take from preheating the Nesco to letting the turkey warm up a bit etc.  There were so many steps, but it all turned out so well.  The Nesco doesn't give you the crispy brown skin that the oven can achieve, but I think the trade off was well worth it as I was able to cook other things in the oven and the turkey was very tender. 

I didn't string the legs together when I cooked it, so the turkey's leg fell off on the journey out of the Nesco.  The photo below is real life, and I love it.  I find it hilarious that it is the first photo of the post, so the thumbnail photo.  No touched up highlight reel around here!

This is the picture that I texted my mom!  Live and learn. 

 

 

 

Naturally I decided to hold the legs together for a bit of a better photo! 

While the turkey was resting, T and Brandon set the table.

I am thankful for this wonderful turkey carver and the YouTube videos he watched before carving.

 I am VERY thankful for these three! 

 

Besides turkey, we feasted on homemade gluten free stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, brussels with bacon, and "the best sweet potatoes ever" (their name in the church cookbook they were discovered in).  The kids actually said that the sweet potato casserole (which is very sweet) could count as the dessert which was a cooking bonus for me. We still had some chocolate pie and apple crisp as well.

The before shot. 

After lunch we had a very special Zoom time with my family.  I created a "Gratitude Scavenger Hunt" experience for the family.  I looked for ideas on Pinterest and then ended up mixing several and combining it with something Brandon and I did when we first started dating.  The result was very special.  My parents and brother and his future wife (who happened to be quarantined with COVID at the time) and our family played the game.  

 

Here were the directions: Look around your house for an object or picture to represent all 15 of these items.  Place your item or picture in a covered box.  Do not tell anyone what items you have in your box until we play the game. We will each get a chance to share our items with the group and explain why we chose them.  Some of these might be tricky to find.  If you can’t find the actual item, you can share a story about that item instead.  

 

I will condense the list and share it with you so that I have the topics documented. Find something that:  is your favorite color, makes you feel cozy or safe,  smells amazing, tastes good, represents a place you love to go, is a toy or game that you like to play with (or a picture of something you liked to play with when you were younger), you love to read,  you love to look at, represents one of the coolest places you have ever been, makes you laugh, is useful that you couldn’t (or wouldn’t want to) live without, reminds you of childhood (or of when you were a baby), makes you proud, reminds you of people you love, and makes you unique.

 

Our little game took about 90 minutes.  It was lengthy, but it also gave us a very special way to spend the afternoon.  It was one of the most special things I have done during the COVID season.  Sometimes Zoom can be awkward, but this time flowed so well.  It was a special blessing as we didn't know Bret's then girlfriend very well and this game allowed us to get to know her much better. It was not the same as spending 5 days with family, but it was a treasured time and I am so thankful that it worked out so well.  It would have been tricky to play a game like this in person because of all the items gathered, so it actually worked better to play it over Zoom.

The Zoom call ended up taking up a lot of our afternoon.  It took us a while to find all the items and then another chunk of time to put them away after the call. We had leftovers for dinner and then did another Zoom call with Brandon's family.  These calls always seem to be pretty tricky for our kids.  There are often big feelings and emotions run high.  It was a sweet blessing to see so much family on Thanksgiving, even if it wasn't in person. Even in a CRAZY year we were so thankful to count our blessings and reflect on all we were thankful for! God has blessed us so abundantly!