Well that was interesting....

I love Thanksgiving! Every year I look forward to the feasting, nap and feast again. This is the first year I did almost the whole meal by myself. This is the first Thanksgiving after we got married where Tim is actually home and we had people over. Sadly, this was the first one that disappointed me. I've worked over Thanksgiving and even then it was better than yesterday. At least when I worked, people would bring me food and I would feel like I was loved.

I spent all day cooking. I woke up at 6:50 so I could start the pies. Pies that I told everyone I was making so what did they bring? Pies. I have 4 pumpkin pies in my fridge along with the other 3 that I made. All together there were 10 of us including children. We could have eaten just pie.

Unfortunately being the over planner that I am and thinking about how my family goes back to eat at least 3-4 times during the day, I had about 10 side dishes and some appetizers. Tim complained ahead of time that he thought it was too much food. I, of course, thought it was too little food and that we would run out. I hate it when I'm wrong.

Our guests arrived an hour and a half late, except for one faithful friend who came through with her mashed potatoes even after driving all night to get here. They stayed for a little less than 2 hours and there is approximately 1 tablespoon of food missing from each casserole. Then they politely excused themselves and left. So now I have enough food to do Thanksgiving every day for a month or so. And I don't expect people to help me clean up. In fact, most of the time when people ask me if they can help with anything, I politely decline because they are guests in my house. But it would have been nice if someone, anyone would have at least offered.

Thank goodness my husband is anal about getting the house back in order...'cause we all know I'm not! And since the festivities ended at 7, we had plenty of time to clean up. So the house is nice and clean again minus the few pots and pans we still have to put away and furniture we have to reorganize.

I'm not angry that I spent all day cooking for pretty much what amounted to nothing. I'm just disappointed. I've always spent Thanksgiving with family or good friends. I wouldn't have even minded cooking for strangers. What I'm angry about is that it ruined the whole experience for my husband. He vowed that we would never do Thanksgiving at our house again. We will either go to someone else's house or eat at a restaurant. He missed the last 2 Thanksgivings and he'll miss the next one. Why did this one have to suck? Everyone who knows me knows that I invite everyone. If you don't have anything to do and I'm planning something, you're invited....even if I don't know you...even if I just met you on-line.... Now I'm starting to regret that. Even though we have known these people for years and years, we're apparently not really friends and I made an error in judgement....