Dani Rose

My brother's family is out of state for Thanksgiving, so my parents and I didn't really plan anything big. My dad ultimately made reservations for us at a hotel restaurant to eat at their Thanksgiving buffet, and it was pretty darn good; I ate enough to fill me up, but managed not to make myself sick, so I'm taking the win!

I also made sure to leave a thank-you card for the staff; while normally I figure that's the least I can do for someone whose work I'm taking advantage of on a federal holiday, today it came with an extra observation: I noticed that a lot of the attendees were elderly and/or disabled, which makes me actually appreciate the existence of Thanksgiving dining-out opportunities. It's probably pretty damn hard to make a Thanksgiving meal by yourself if you've got a twisted ankle or are over eighty years old! So, while I'd written the card ahead of time and didn't really have room to write more, it may be something I include if we do this again: A specific thank-you to the workers involved for making it so some people are able to have a nice Thanksgiving meal, without inadvertently harming themselves. An important lesson for me to remember.

All that aside, one of my favorite things about Thanksgiving is the leftovers! And since we didn't make our own Thanksgiving meal, we have nothing left over. So I took it upon myself to make a double-batch each of green bean casserole and stuffing. (Also because Dad has been accumulating stuffing kits for months now, and if we don't make it for Thanksgiving, when the hell is any of us going to make it, huh? I didn't want there to still be four boxes of Stovetop stuffing plus two bags of some other more complicated to make brand of stuffing in the cupboard come Christmas, dammit!) And now there's plenty of leftovers of each for us to graze on over the next few days ✌