Pies for sale

So that was Thanksgiving.

I confessed to a friend last week that Thanksgiving dinner is my least favorite meal to prepare during the year. It's so darned much work, and then there's all the clean-up. For some reason, Christmas dinner never seems to be as much work.

I like Thanksgiving itself, for sure. I enjoy having family here on the big day, and I definitely enjoy the food. I guess having the meal catered would be my idea of a relaxing day. I wish we'd had some snow, though. I like to have snow arrive in time for Thanksgiving.

But on to the various topics in this post. At our sorority meeting last week, our guest speaker, Nancy, showed us simple tricks for creating table centerpieces and other creations to spiff-up the holidays. My header photo is my table centerpiece for yesterday. (Sorry it's so huge. That's why I haven't used header photos in my recent posts. Suddenly the photos are huge and practically shout at you when you open my blog. {Update! I discovered I'd accidentally disabled the "shrink to fit" option for header photos. I've got it working again, so this header photo is no longer roadside billboard size}.)

I know. I know, I can hardly believe it myself! I made that?! Nancy urged us to use alstromeria as our fresh flower in an arrangement. She said it's inexpensive and lasts a long time.

So at Sam's Club on Monday, I bought a big bouquet of alstromeria for $5.00. Then I went to The Dollar Tree, which Nancy also recommended over AC Moore or Michael's, to get silk greenery. For $1 per bunch, I purchased various ivies and such. I also bought one of those green things that florists put in the bottom of an arrangement to hold both water and stems. (What are they called? Florist foam or something like that?)

Now I was in business.

I cut back the stems of the alstromeria quite severely (after first leaving them too long, which created a bizarre arrangement, if I ever saw one), arranged the flowers plus some greenery plus some gold bows on sticks, and voila! A Thanksgiving table centerpiece.

I'll use the same idea for making a Christmas centerpiece. In fact, I've already bought some silk poinsettia and Christmas greenery. It'll be just a matter of getting some more fresh alstromeria.

As you can see from this photo, Violet joined us for Thanksgiving dinner. She got caught up in the spirit of the feast and made "pies" for each of us. She took orders to determine each's favorite kind. I told her mine was lemon meringue. I asked her if she knew what a lemon meringue pie looks like. She replied, "No, but I can make it yellow." So that's all she needed to know. She drew apple and pumpkin pies also, cut them into wedges, and distributed them to all of us. Then she decided to "sell" her pies. That girl is always thinking.

Violet's mom brought with her a story book about wild turkeys. She remembered our story of the time a few years ago when over 20 wild turkeys spent several days in our backyard, roosting in the trees at night and looking ridiculous because they were such big birds in such spindly trees.

Rachel read the turkey story to Violet and the rest of us, then they went out onto the back deck to see if they might spot some turkeys. No such luck, although we did have a flock of 18 wild turkeys hanging around our property about two weeks ago.

Marjorie Standish helped me make this lemon meringue pie for dessert. If you're not familiar with Marjorie and her down-home Maine cooking, go here. This cookbook should be a staple in every kitchen. She walked me through making a lemon meringue pie from scratch, which I'd never done before. I'd always used Jell-o lemon pie filling for these pies in the past.

Rachel brought a delicious sweet potato pie. Now I know why Oprah gushes over sweet potato pie.

So that was Thanksgiving. Now it's time to move on to Christmas. My white Christmas cactus is heralding in the season by coming into bloom. And I'm off to a Christmas craft fair later this morning....