Big long turkey day

Thanksgiving was ridiculously busy. I got out of work at around 3 on Wednesday, which led to the afternoon of cleaning and errands. I came home and the man was finishing cleaning bird cages and perches.

We realized we needed to buy a few things in preparation for Thursday (ie beer and wine) He wanted to wait until later and clean more but I knew that traffic was going to suck at rush hour time, so we ventured out. We hit the booze store, Home Depot (turkey fry oil) and the local Acme for ingredients for injecting into the fried turkey.

We got home and I started cleaning the kitchen, he cleaned up the basement (not sure why that was important but he was cleaning so I let it go). Then I made pumpkin pie. Good times. And then crashed early.

Thursday I woke up at 7:30 (uh huh suckage) mainly because I was thinking about the rest of the cleaning that needed to be done. So we went to that and then the man had said Wednesday that he was going to clean the bathroom (to my excitement) but he hadn't done it yet. I dusted and vacuumed the bedroom, while he folded his mountain of laundry. I finished before he did and he conned me into folding as well. Then he said why don't you start cleaning the bathroom. To which I said, you told me you were going to do it and I got all excited and now you want me to do it? So he felt bad and cleaned the bathroom (YAY!)
After all that is was shower and bathe the dog time.

I got out of the shower and the man's dad was there to stuff the turkey (the man loves his dad's stuffing so who am I to not let him do it). The man was all excited to inject flavor into the fried turkey, which we did. And then he went injection happy and attacked the one destined for the oven. So the roaster went in at 11.

Around 1 my brother showed up, which was way early but whatever. Then the man's sister came over with ice (which we forgot, as usual). My folks came around 2:30 and the man's came around 3. Around the same time we started heating the oil for the fried turkey.

It took about a half hour to heat to 360 and was a huge spectacle. The man put on a full suit to cover himself from splatter, gloves and protective goggles. Everyone was watching and taking pictures as he slowly lowered the 18 pounder into the oil. It was fun to watch and a little scary cause that oil was bubbling over the side of the pot. The whole thing took 65 minutes to finish and was done before the roaster. And it tasted pretty good too.

By the time it was done everyone was there (18 in total) and all the sides we being loaded out on to the tables. The food was all good and sitting to eat (at 5:30) was the first time I sat down all day. I got a huge compliment from my brother, which is rare. He said my pumpkin pie was better than my grandmom's and he ate 3 pieces! Good thing grandmom wasn't there to hear that (she was at my aunt's house she's still with us.)

The food went over well, everyone had fun. I think the last people to leave were my parents at around 10:30. And then we went and crashed.

And that was the first thanksgiving that I ever hosted. I hope everyone else's was as good as mine was.