Thanksgiving 2016

My last post started with this same shot from our front porch but with fall colors. This is what it looked like from Thanksgiving through our departure on 12/16.  Notice the depth of the snow on the pumpkin!

This year Gail, Colin, Leslie and Rob joined us for Thanksgiving Day. James, Sean and Will came up for most of the week. Sadly Morgen can't leave work Thanksgiving weekend due to her work at Anthropologie. Larry and Christine were in Morocco so they and Luke weren't with us this year. Vermont was blessed with lots of snow this year - happily for us! A month of cold snowy days was just perfect before flying south on 12/20 for the winter. After Thanksgiving Larry and Christine returned from Morocco and joined us for a few days. We did lots of hiking in the snow and at night they serenaded us on their guitar and fiddle. We left Vermont on the 16th and celebrated Scott's birthday and Bill Fonvielle's with friends at Pinxto Pincho Tapas Bar in Woburn - great night. Then had our Annual Holiday Open House at the Wolfs in Concord - a record number attended and it was perfect. Our next stop was a week's vacation with our oldest son Josh and his family in Costa Rica - covered in my next post.

The Smiths brought this beautiful Antipasto plate for
 Thanksgiving appetizers.

James & Scott relax with a drink before the meal and after
a good long walk in the snow on the AT

Colin enjoyed the first volume of my new
books on our Adventures on Scott Free.

Sean and Gail

Colin, Will, Rob, Leslie, Sean and James

Scott prepares to spatchcock the turkey.

The result was amazing - crisp skin and moist meat in half
the time!

Our dinner is mainly traditional to my family; turkey, stuffing
with onions, celery and apples, mashed potatoes, butternut
squash puree, turnip puree, plain & giblet gravy, two kinds of
cranberry sauce (homemade of course), sweet potatoes, and this
 year, roasted Brussels sprouts with walnuts & grapes. Growing up
we didn't have a green vegetable but scalloped oysters and
creamed baby onions.

Sean and I in the kitchen

And Sean with Leslie

James made the Brussels Sprouts

My pecan and apple pies (we always had pumpkin and mince as
well as apple - but these are now our families' favorites)

Gail and Colin (and the back of Heather's head)

Sean was our mixologist - yummy
specialty drinks were concocted.

One night for dinner I made Salmon Caprese in Puff Pastry for
dinner for Larry and Suzanne,

They provided some excellent music for us.

Christine was a revelation for us - we hadn't
realized she was an excellent musician.

Larry has always played the guitar and sang but now he's with
a local group in Essex and playing a lot.