Early Wednesday Thanksgiving

Our holiday celebrations are now scheduled around my brother's family. Everybody works and most of their schedules are variable. My niece works for the hotel industry so she often has to work during the holidays.

Last year, we celebrated Thanksgiving on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. This year, we celebrated Thanksgiving a day early.

I bought a super large 23.5 pound turkey and read that it would take 6-6.5 hours of roasting time.

I was reading Gigi's post when the turkey had been in the oven for 5 hours. Her post made me go down and check on the turkey. It was already done!!! Good grief! Thanks Gigi! It was even a little overdone, but we salvaged it by basting it a lot. I really think the brining helped it retain the moisture.

Everybody began arriving with their wonderful dishes. My nephew and his wife brought a tomato-mozzrella-basil insalata caprese dish that I haven't seen served in Hawaii. I loved it on the mainland. They also prepared sauteed mushrooms which were scrumptious.

My sister-in-law really worked her fingers to the bone making a macaroni salad, yams and mashed potatoes. She always has that task since she's Irish.

This was one of the rare times that mom did not cook anything. I told her she should take a rest. She wasn't thrilled about that. She said it was boring not to take part. Therefore, next time, it is dully noted that she will not be standing in the side lines.

She did LOVE sampling everybody's creations in the buffet line though.

Art says my eyes were bigger than my tummy again. I took too much and had a hard time finishing my plate.

Everything was wonderful!

Here's mom, nephews, niece and brother, Dennis.


Then Dennis took over the camera and got us all in. There was a better shot, but our family has a lot of blinkers.


Art cut the pumpkin pie he made and the chocolate bundt cake that I baked.


I love how my three nephews have such a strong affection for each other. Their brother Shawn could not be with us because he was working in Waikiki.


Dennis and Nancy did most of the clean-up and when everybody left, there was not a dirty dish in sight. Everything was put away or divided so that we would all have a lot of left-overs for tomorrow's meal.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! I'm getting ready for Black Friday. Somebody is going to get those Costco truffles for sure!