Franksgiving

Tis the season for stuffing my gullet. I dropped some mega baby weight since I'm nursing BeeBop with her dairy allergy. So I really have some work to do if I want to maintain that lovely fanny pack gut that I so proudly earned while I was pregs.
This year The Hubs and I are taking the girls on a whirlwind adventure to the South! We'll be haulin' our turkey butts down to Loosianner (Louisiana for the non-natives) for Thanksgiving. The 12 hour car trip should be a delight since BeeBop has decided the car is a torture chamber designed to cause her misery and harm. So I'll probably spend the entire trip in the back seat soothing the beast. She is our sweet and laid-back darling, but she turns into a complete fed-her-after-midnight gremlin when she's strapped into her carseat.
My mother-in-law will be preparing a small feast for Thanksgiving, but we're keeping it minimal since we're all leaving for a cruise the Sunday after Turkey Day. (Woot!) The word cruise has Latin roots meaning "endless food vessel", so we'll pregame with some turkey, pork roast, cornbread dressing, etc. But it will just be me, BeeBop, Sweet Potato, The Hubs, my mother-in-law, father-in-law, and brother-in-law. So we won't have a mega meal like most folks do.

My history with Thanksgiving is a happy one. It's my all-time favorite holiday because its sole focus is noshing. There are no gifts involved, no commercialized nonsense. All that garbage starts on Black Friday. But Thanksgiving is a day to be with family and get completely miserable by gorging yourself on carbs and starches smothered in gravies. It's not Thanksgiving until my food climbs into my ribcage.

At first my MIL said we weren't going to have turkey at all. It's not really her favorite, and she's not super sentimental on traditions. But I'm super sappy and sentimental about the bird, so I guilted her into at least doing a turkey breast.
But I was going to miss out on the stuffing and gorging and the beautiful way the gravy runs together with the cranberry sauce under the dressing to make a cacophony of sloppy magic that puts me in a food coma until I muster the strength for round 3 of the turkeypalooza.
So I sent out an email blast to a handful of my pals to gauge interest in a Friend Thanksgiving I celebrity name mashed into Franksgiving. And to my delight they were all on board!

So last night I gathered with 5 of my closest gal pals and their husbands and all of our kids. It was loud and obnoxious, none of the toddlers touched a bite of food, baby J smeared cranberry sauce into the carpet, Sweet Potato peed her pants and my kitchen was a complete disaster since I was inspired rendered insane by my new apron from The Hubs and made three dishes to bring. But it was deliciously perfect.
My good pal Curly Q offered to host since her house would accommodate all of us, and it was an excuse to use all the place settings from her wedding china! She said she had to actually take tags off of some of the settings because it was their maiden voyage.

The kids had their own table, and although they were all too excited to eat, it was pretty precious seeing all our little Peanuts gathered 'round the table together.
As I miserably stuffed the last bits of my second pumpkin muffin down my throat I sat back and smiled at the beautiful mess of it all. Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday as a child because I knew it was a time I could be with the people I loved. When we moved to Indiana I wrestled with the fact that I'd no longer be able to share this special holiday with my family because of the distance. But as the tryptophan coursed through my veins I gazed over the chaos with contentment. I met all these wonderful people before Sweet Potato could walk. Our kids are growing up together. We've all been pregnant together, and now our babies are growing up together too.
Curly Q was my rock when BeeBop was born. She came and got Sweet Potato when I went into labor and kept her for two days straight while she was snotty and sick, on top of caring for her three kids until my mom could get here. And Sweet Potato was in hog heaven the whole time.
When Veggie Mama's husband was deployed I took Sweet Potato over for slumber parties. After the girls went to bed we crafted into the wee hours of the morning and got deliriously silly over baked goodies and trashy novels.
Cupcake is the one I call when The Hubs says something super intelligent like "What did you do all day?" She's always up for a girls night and you'd be hard pressed to find a more generous or loyal friend.
Sharpshooter is my inspiration. Her blog Arrows Sent Forth, inspires me to keep writing. Deadlines loom and I think "Oh dear Lord! Why don't I just quit!?" But she does it with two kiddos, and she does it damn well. So when I need a little encouragement I have a kindred spirit of the written word.
And on those late nights when BeeBop's hot sweaty little head is nestled in my armpit, and Sweet Potato groggily climbs into my bed, I know I can always count on the Stitch Witch to lend a sympathetic ear the next day. She knows that not all of us were blessed with good sleepers, and sometimes being the meat of a kid sandwich is the only way you get any shut eye.
Each of these women have become a staple in my life and the key to my sanity here. We're all in it together, and they just get me and I get them. So on Franksgiving, while cleaning BeeBop's barf off of Curly Q's wing back chair, I was happy to be surrounded by my new family in the place I call home.