Alex's First Thanksgiving

The Thanksgiving of the disappearing food....but not the way you'd think. Sounds strange, doesn’t it? Let me explain....

It was meant to be the Thanksgiving of all Thanksgivings. Our first with our new baby....and everyone and their Uncle Abner were invited. The Halloween decorations came down around November 2, and immediately the Thanksgiving decorations began going up. Pumpkins, cornucopias, scarecrows, turkeys, Indians, Pilgrims, not all of it politically correct, mind you, but very festive and Thanksgiving-y.

The folks: us, my mom, my dad, my brother, Gloria, Sandy, Jessica and Rick, and Adrian and Aaron; Ashley and Jared.

The menu: Turkey with oyster dressing (hubby’s fave); baked macaroni (Adrian’s fave); sweet potato casserole (my fave); green bean casserole; mashed potatoes with gravy; apple pie; pumpkin pie, pecan pie, my homemade cranberry bread, and my mother’s contributions: dumplings (Mark’s favorite); homemade sourdough bread (everyone’s favorite); and corn casserole.

The mystery: Chaos ensued at our house that morning, as it does all mornings, and at my mother’s house, as well. So hubby, in a chivalrous attempt to be helpful, offered to go over to my mother’s house to pick up her food platters and bring them here, since Mom and Dad and Mark wouldn’t be arriving until a little later, and our guests were all beginning to arrive at our house. The dumplings weren’t quite ready yet, but the corn casserole and the sourdough bread were, so hubby loaded them up from Mom's house and brought them home. He brings in the corn casserole dish, covered in aluminum foil. Sets it on the counter. He goes back out to get the sourdough bread, and set the bread down.....somewhere.

Fast forward to dinner time. Mom is arriving with Mark and Dad. Getting out of Mark’s van, Mom stumbled and dropped the huge casserole dish of dumplings right there on the driveway. The dish broke into pieces, and the dumplings went everywhere. Well, S**T! We set out the corn casserole, as well as the other various dishes and main entree (the turkey, of course) and upon removing the aluminum foil from the corn dish, we discovered that mom had given hubby the wrong dish out of her refrigerator. The dish was more than half eaten! Mom had made a corn casserole a week earlier for her house, and made a fresh dish the night before, for our Thanksgiving dinner. When she had looked into the fridge to hand it to hubby, she handed him the wrong one! The bread....where’s the bread....everyone loves Mom’s sourdough bread. Quite simply, hubby cannot remember where he put it down. He remembers that the counters were piling up, and the bread was not ready at that time to unwrap and set out, so he laid it somewhere....out of the way. WAY out of the way, apparently, because now we can’t find it! We looked everywhere. The rolls are simply gone. I thought hubby was joking, pulling a prank, but after long minutes of even him searching, I realized he had simply lost his mind and now our Thanksgiving dinner would be served without the bread! Luckily, my family has a sense of humor, and I baked and cooked enough for an army, so no one went home hungry. We did miss my mother’s cooking (Mark especially missed her dumplings), but I just couldn’t resist profusely thanking my mother for all that she brought to the table, on this most memorable Thanksgiving of 2005!

So how ‘bout you? Any Thanksgiving day dinner disasters to share?