Thanksgiving, as far as holidays go, gets grossly overlooked. It’s often just seen as a stepping stone to Christmas, a marker passed on the way to the shopping season. Heck, now stores don’t even wait for the turkey to get cold before opening their doors for the holiday rush. The fixings and gatherings of Thanksgiving may seem modest compared to December’s showy gifts and twinkling lights but I appreciate its simple focus.
Like a prophet in their own country, no one listens to a photographer in their own family… and this is what happens.
For me, Thanksgiving means making delicious foods from scratch for the people that matter most. It means enjoying some sunshine on a pre-gorging run and then forgetting about calories. It means consciously acknowledging the many things I’m lucky to have in my life.
Jason requested I make caramel apple pie again this thanksgiving.
I usually get assigned the desserts for my family’s Thanksgiving dinner and I don’t skimp on the cream or the preparation time. This year, with assistance from Jason, I made caramel apple pies and almond fudge cake. Yes, of course my crusts were created from scratch. Duh. Both treats turned out pretty tasty.
After staying up late to finish those dishes, we rose early on Thanksgiving morning to compete in the Pilgrim 5K. This is an entertaining race where participants dress as pilgrim folk and pretend they’re courageously running across Plymouth instead of lamely over a golf course. It was absolutely frigid during the event. Temperatures were in the 20s but it was the wind that really cut through our bonnets. Still, clouds of exhaled mist hanging over packs of respiring runners were a curious and amusing sight.
This cake had a chocolate glaze and cream-cheese filling so it’s a good thing calories don’t exist on Thanksgiving.
We spent the afternoon with just one family, mine. We got to enjoy dinner with Jason’s family on a different day due to work schedules. I won’t lie, not having to hurry between two feasts made the holiday feel much more like an actual holiday instead of a cramming circus.
Thanksgiving is one of the many things I’m grateful for in my life. It doesn’t demand much, just a home-cooked meal and a few laughs with kin, yet it leaves you with a satisfied belly and numerous sweet recollections.
This October we held our annual Halloween bash once more. We again covered our house in potion books and cobwebs. And, as usual, we spent months creating costumes, collecting prizes and preparing games. And yes, our brains were both donated by Abby Normal. (How did you know?)
I looked berry sweet dressed as the 80s Strawberry Shortcake toy. Jason, on the other hand, seemed a little peculiar.
Just your typical haunted tabletop.
Floating lanterns seemed like perfect companions for a cocooned corpse.
As I have mentioned at every possible opportunity, transforming our house into a festive haunt takes a tremendous amount of work. However, despite the ominous layers of spectral decay prolific at our party, some attendees can’t comprehending how the bedecking could take more than a day or two. If you doubt the validity of our toils, help us decorate for a few hours. The tiny area you’ll complete with an evening’s work will have you convinced. (Yes, I am trying to trick you into helping us decorate.)
The pinata got hammered.
Mindy won second place in the kids’ costume contest.
Read my rant below to learn all about this stairway.
Since I’m already whining, allow me to continue with a dissection of the lengthy process involved in transforming just one small space from tedious to terrifying. Please refer to the picture of the staircase above and the steps to its creation below:
Get a splendidly morbid idea, preferably one you haven’t used in the 15+ years you’ve been spooking. (This can be pretty tough when your creative juice have already been digested a few times. Isn’t there some rule about how many times you can drink your pee?)
Disassemble Jason’s bad idea. (Sorry Jason, your concept for the staircase didn’t look very good.)
Cover one wall in black gossamer sheets for the benefit of some soon-to be-added pallid bits.
Cover those sheets strategically with black creepy cloth.
Add squirming mummy hands, AKA pallid bits.
Add stringy white cloth to make it appear like the mummy hands have been losing their stuff n’ stuff.
Add some ragged grey cloth like your grandma would add doilies.
Add a string of bat lights.
Hang dismembered hands on opposite wall.
Give those hands some holey cloth and eyeballs to hold onto.
Wrap the whole area in a thick coating of cobwebs.
Add a few final touches like flaming candlesticks and rabid rats.
Power up everything with some imaginative extension cord placement and a whole lot of batteries.
That little zone took no less than several hours and over 100 pushpins to create. But at least we only had another twenty areas or so to go afterward…
We upped the eerie in our basement.
Why did it have to be spandex?
I wanted to smell berry nice, like a Strawberry Shortcake toy, so I wore this fine fragrance made by American Greetings. Since it was designed by a greeting card company, I knew it would be full of sunshine and smiles.
Although a party wouldn’t be fitting for Halloween without some dark ambiance, you’ve got to follow through after you set the mood. Photos by professionals, carnival games, a piñata, crafts, bingo, treats, a costume contests… we made sure our party wasn’t all dressed up with nowhere to go.
Our party was so amazing, some guests just wouldn’t leave.
A photo area has become a standard feature at our party.
We had roughly 70 or so guests show up, a pretty normal turnout. It was a wicked, insane, sugary, chaotic, colorful, noisy, crowded, sticky, amusing, competitive, exhausting night. In other words, it was a typical Sabin party.
The kids take their bashing duties seriously; it’s quite comical.
Thanks everyone that joined us in celebrating the most horrible (and best) holiday. No party would be a success without fun-loving people. And a big thank you to the tremendous kin and friends that helped us put up, clean up, take down or run games. We had more helpers this year than we ever have. Due to that atypical assistance, our decorations are almost all contained at this point. That is unprecedented progress given we are often still packing away Halloween when it’s time to put up Christmas. Thank you!
A pleasant memory is much more valuable than another golf shirt or the latest Grisham novel. And, clearly, a memory involving me is sure to be pleasant. Hence, I decided that the best thing to give my dad and brothers this year for Father’s Day was an incredible night out with their coolest relative… and some of the rest of the family. My mom and several siblings hopped onboard with this plan quickly. Yup, they know a genius idea when they hear one.
Although Father’s Day was months ago, this exceptional scheme was only recently carried out. Fourteen of my family members assembled for dinner at India Palace followed by an hour of bowling. Andrew was the unlikely winner of our match, trailed closely by Jason. Those turkeys were so far behind initially that no one even heard their gobbles coming.
These bowlers supported and harassed each other in equal parts, just as family should.
The heckling opportunities, which were as plentiful as the pins in our lanes, continued with a couple rounds of laser tag. Unfortunately for my critics, my tagging skills are inconsequentially mediocre and not even taunt worthy.
The boys in my family got a heap of togetherness that night along with a large helping of Indian bowling pizazz. Perhaps a golf shirt is sounding pretty good to you about now.
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