Rebekah Staggs

Between my broken upper oven, slowly dieing lower oven, current aversion to raw meat, and just not feeling up to the back breaking labor of putting out the full Thanksgiving Spread this year I gave in. For the first time in the 17 Thanksgivings we’ve been together I bought everything pre-made.

When we first got married we lived near family and we spread the work out among the family members and meals moved from one sibling’s house to another’s. We haven’t bought a can of Cranberry Relish in twelve years since I first made it fresh. It’s been at least seven years since we moved and I starting making the whole spread myself. Usually taking two days of on my feet prep, cooking, and baking.

This year’s spread was pretty good.  Curtesy of Sam’s Club and Walmart. The only work I had to do was open boxes and move pans in and out of the oven. Thankfully while my lower oven doesn’t work well for baking/cooking it works well enough for heating things up. I spent yesterday with my family playing games, watching TV, and otherwise just resting and taking it easy. Today my family helped in the kitchen, we’re playing more games, we plan on watching the Football game together, and otherwise just hanging out and taking it easy.

It has been a very memorable Thanksgiving and sometimes store bought and not from scratch isn’t a bad thing. This year with so much to be thankful for it hit home that it’s not about the food, but about the memories we make around the table. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!