The Best Holiday Time of Year

Thanksgiving has to be my favorite “family” holiday and this is why… Early Thursday morning I went to bed at 1:30am after a night of wasting my youth away only to wake up at 5:30am to begin the greatest of all family fun traditions. Brother was at my house a few minutes later and we were off to Hickory North Carolina. I stopped and loaded up on cappuccino and Brother slept the 2 hours and 12 minutes it takes to get to my aunts house. Once at Aunt B’s we had some breakfast and made the "18 Hole Bloody Marries" to start the morning tradition off on the right foot. We then scurried out to the club house of the fog shrouded golf course my aunt lives on (River Crest Golf Club). You see it’s a tradition to play golf Thanksgiving morning. We even have a trophy now; it’s unofficially the Turkey Trot Golf Tournament.

Yes I donated the trophy from my own case a few years back, I’m not going to tell you how I won it the first time, but now it's home is in NC and it fits the tourney just right.

I think I can speak for everyone when I say we had a blast.

Here is Cousin T and Em, notice Cousin T is busy getting some swing grease out of the cooler if you know what I mean (hint hint wink wink). A pint of the stuff really helps my game too, total supporter.

And guess what... WE WIN!!! Mainly because Cousin-in-law J is with us this year. And the trophy stays at my Aunt’s house for another year.

After a quick clean up (wish there was time for a nap, but we were already behind schedule) it was time for the cooking. My Cousin T has become a master Turkey Fryer over the past 7 years. I had bought a fryer recently to try my hand at homebrew, but I am planning on cooking some turks as well so I was taking notes. No, not mental notes, I actually pulled out the notebook and was writing out calculations on cook time length verse bird weight and oil temp. (My family is a bunch of chemist, engineers, gear heads, and other science-y types.) I got a lot of good tips.

Here is the dip in the oil, a.k.a. "errral"

And 54.5 minutes later the pull out

And the end result. YUM!!!

Some of the men doing what all of us do best... hang out around the fire and cook animals (can I get a grunt up in here?). Cousin-in-law J just slapped Brother in the back of the head to make him smile, it worked for all of us.

We all ate too much, here is Brother and Dad, notice the empty plate, that’s what I’m talking about bro!!!

Everyone was having a great time. Including the little ones, I’m sure they probably had the most fun.

Here is Aunt B with the matriarch of the family her name is MIMI. She is great, but we worry about her now. She has spent years and years praying for all of us, now we are praying for her.

After some dissert, a lot of good byes, and two distended bellies Bother and I hit the road for home. We got back to my place around 10pm… [sigh], finally I can get some sleep.

WHAT?!?!?!

NO WAY!!!

I still got another stop to make! Finished the night off right, hanging with my other-other family (the L-town bunch) lax’n on the couch watching the new Star Trek in an overstuffed carbohydrate induced coma-isk haze. Bed by 2am [oh yea!], needless to say I was tired at work the next day. But it was totally worth it, I LOVED MY THANKSGIVING!

Best “family” holiday of the year in my opinion.