Our First Thanksgiving

Andy and I hosted our first Thanksgiving this year. We celebrated Thanksgiving Day at his aunt's house and hosted my family on Friday. It was such a great time. I hope that we get to host again someday.

 

I was so proud of us for pulling off our first big meal. Neither of us had ever made a turkey before, but it came out without a hitch thanks to a melding recipes from the Betty Crocker and America's Test Kitchen cookbooks.

I am a total stuffing-with-sausage convert. I can't believe I had never eaten it that way before. We had all of the fixin's and my family's traditional holiday dishes: Polish sausage with sauerkraut, homemade finger dumplings, and lazy man's pierogi (our's is minus the sausage).

 

I always get so distracted when guests arrive and forget to put out food. I finally wised up and hung a menu and "To Do" list to manage my giant task list and all of the different cooking times and temperatures. This was BRILLIANT and I can't believe that I've never done this before. I saw Andy checking the list and crossing stuff off all afternoon. I'm doing this for every party. It's so much easier than using my phone.

For the table, I used a table runner that I got on clearance at Crate & Barrel a few seasons ago. And because I am nothing, if not predictable, I whipped up some place cards using leaf patterns that I downloaded and cut with the Silhouette SD.