Holiday Turkey Went Missing

Holiday Turkey Went Missing

Every year I always do the traditional turkey; and all the trimmings that go with the holiday season. My kitchen is always chaos when the holiday is here. I have food all over the kitchen and dogs on under my feet waiting for anything that falls on the floor. I always do the cooking alone. I like it that way for a reason. When someone says, “I want to help.” I start to cringe because I know what happens when too many people get involved with preparing Thanksgiving dinner. My husband and I are always in competition with each other with specific dishes. Who makes this or that better is always the topic. I must admit to one thing; my husband does make the best meat stuffing in our family, but I come out number one with everything else; I’m only speaking the truth. Plus, everybody who has Thanksgiving with my family can tell you that my traditional dishes are worth coming over to eat every year. Sorry I’m bosting but I can’t help it.

Last year’s Thanksgiving dinner was a bust. I always make a list of all the food that is needed to make all my special dishes. Well…needless to say; we thought we had all the ingredients for everything that I make for the holiday. Well…as it turns out, we didn’t. My guests were arriving anywhere between 11:30am through 2pm in the afternoon. I make some of my dishes the night before but that didn’t happen because my husband and I were out and didn’t get home until 2am in the morning. I usually wake up incredibly early to start food preparations, but I woke up late instead due to a hangover from the night before.

Anyway, my guests started to flood my house while I was starting my food preparations. Like clockwork, my husband and I start to have a fight over which dishes should be made first. Thankfully, my mother intervened; calmed us down by stepping in on a few things to start cooking the food. She is good with moving things along when needed. As things were moving along, I noticed there were more than several ingredients missing. I was in a small panic attack. I made my husband go to the store to pick up what was needed.

My husband came back from the store. As I was taking things out of the bags, again there were ingredients he forgot to buy. Oh man, I was red hot under the collar. I started to raise my voice. My husband said. “Ok! Honey, I will go back to the store. But don’t get mad if I buy extras for other things.” I answered. “Fine! Please bring home what I asked for. Thank you.” I sent my husband back out to the store a second time.

It took him two hours from grocery shopping. I saw the big bags he brought home, and my eyes were popping out of my sockets. I asked him. “What did you buy?” His reply. “The ingredients you asked for and plus, some extras just to throw in the mix.” I replied. “Oh really… I see two bouquets of flowers. You never buy flowers.” His reply to me. “Well…If your good I might start buying them. Besides, I thought the flowers would be a great touch for the holidays.” I said to him. “Ok… Can we start finishing with the cooking and get started with the turkey.” My husband replied. “Ok. Let’s get to it.”

Finally, the turkey is set and ready for the oven. It took two strong men to put this turkey in the oven. Now I can relax for a while; wait for the turkey. Meanwhile, for lunch I started to prepare for a big spread of food. I had everything from soup to nuts, sort of speaking. Once lunch was over; dishes were being cleaned and I asked my husband to set the dining room table. I also set the kiddie table for the younger children and a table for the dessert goodies.

I looked outside and the kids were having fun, playing different games in the yard. Things were a lot calmer between my husband and myself. My husband handed me a glass of wine and told me. “Babe, you deserve this.” I answered him. “Thanks, I know I do.” We smiled at each other then continued to watch the kids having fun.”

It was now time to take the turkey out of the oven. It took seven hours of cooking; and two strong men to take the bird out of the oven, and on to the table for carving. Of course, my dogs are all in the kitchen just waiting for their piece of turkey. I have four fur babies; two are small – medium size and two big ones. Especially my Great Dane, he is a brute. The turkey is on the table smelling so good; so, I quickly grabbed my camera to take pictures of my work. I always do that because I am a perfectionist with certain things; I can’t help it. I get teased a lot for it.

Anyway, once pictures are done; I get food into bowls and on to the table first then my husband starts the carving of the turkey. But while our backs were turned things got a bit messy. While the clattering of the pots and pans wan down; we both heard eating, and chomping. We turned around to look and we (really, I) were astonished to what was happening. Our mouths dropped to the floor. We weren’t fast enough to get the turkey on the table, so it looked like our Great Dane knocked the turkey to the floor and all four dogs had their own feast on my floor for Thanksgiving. For my family and my guest, the Thanksgiving feast was a bust. I should have known this could happen, when you have a monster size dog in the kitchen. I swear I think my dog planned this. But thankfully Thanksgiving wasn’t a complete bust. To clean the mess was a big challenge. But I made a phone call to a restaurant to order a nice size turkey for delivery. Thank goodness a restaurant came to the rescue and saved my families Thanksgiving holiday.