Thanksgiving in Chattanooga
2:00 Thursday, my dad’s family Thanksgiving on the mountain:
I got to hold my cousin Jessica’s baby Evangeline for the first time!
5:00 I went to take a plate of food to my Aunt Denise who was at the hospice with my uncle Jimmy.
7:00 On a cheerier note, I went to my mother’s family Thanksgiving at her new house.
(Take note of the decorative balls that are on the coffee table there.)
My niece, Renae.
My poor little nephew Matt-matt. He was so tired.
My mother’s cooking. :)
This was once recognizable as sweet-potato pie with marshmallows on top.
but the marshmallows got a little “toasty” and ended up more like the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion.
My mom is talented.
My mother also burned the hell out of this broccoli-cheese casserole. She just scraped off the bread crumbs from the top and added some more. …but SHHH! don’t tell anyone. :)
We had a pretty good looking spread of food. That's my sister Mary in the background.
Her daughter kept walking around all night showing her plumber's butt.
She's definitely one of the family.
My nephew, Tucker, the son of my older half-brother, Chris, got into these decorative ball things that my mom has around her house.
He now bares closer resemblance to his heavy-chested mother than ever before.
My brother's wife, Shana.
Then, of course, Nae-nae had to play, too.
Renae has the amazing talent of being able to show off for the family and search for buried treasure AT THE SAME TIME!
Meanwhile, my 80 year-old grandmother looks like she has the most energy out of any of us.
My brother David shows off his “I am a 17 year-old” black nail polish.
He is both family and "family".
And Michael played WarCraft III FOR THE ENTIRE EVENING.
David and my sister's husband Jonathan flipping me off.
And then my mother looked in the oven and realized that she had never gotten out the turkey. Everyone had just eaten the ham and some small turkey slivers that were on the table and my mother, in all her stress, had totally forgotten that she had a very large bird cooked and ready, in the oven.
She also opened the fridge later that night and realized that she had 40 deviled eggs that she never put out on the counter, either.
This is the kind of forgetfulness that I am doomed to have in my old age.
And this is me when I first got up on Thanksgiving morning.