A Nutty Thanksgiving....

In our house over the past 4 or 5 years Thanksgiving and The Nutcracker are all rolled into one...production for Nutcracker has been going on for over a month and the show is the week after Thanksgiving.

Luckily we have Thanksgiving dinner at Papa's house...because our house is filled with costumes, yards of tulle, lots of glitter, stray rat heads (for the show of course, we got rid of the real ones last year!) and many other odds and ends.

We have been at the studio for hours and hours, rehearsing, fitting costumes, creating angel skirts, organizing baby mice costumes, fluffing up tutus....so much to be done so our dancers look their best.

Here is our costume room - and this is only about one third of the costumes! 

There are baskets being prepared for auction at the Nutcracker Sweet Shoppe - themed of course for the dances of the show!

But, amidst all of this, with the girlies help we were able to do our part of the Thanksgiving feast.  As is our tradition everyone brings a little something, so we didn't have too much to do...

apples to go in with the yams.  Madison made them this year layering canned yams, chopped apples, butter and brown sugar.  After that is cooked for about 45 minutes at 350 then of course the mini marshmallows go on top for a bit of toasting and Voila! the best yams ever!

Lane made 'Stacy' rolls for all of us to enjoy...

a wonderful recipe that we can never get enough of!

Papa and Willie stood by cheering us on!

One mishap this year - no pecan pie!  We planned on using the pecans from our tree, but, even after drying them in the oven they were too wet - too much rain lately I guess.  Maybe we will make pecan pie after Nutcracker!

Family getting together is just so wonderful...that's what it's all about (well besides the Hokey Pokey that is!)

Thanks to Apple we were even able to see the faces of the family that was celebrating in Texas!

We got out my mom's fancy peach blossom dishes and set the table in an entirely non-traditional way!

Pretty, don't you think?

So even with visions of Sugar Plums and Nutcrackers in our heads we had a very special Thanksgiving.

I hope that all of yours were filled with yummy food, friends, family and lots of love just like ours was!


xoxo       Elizabeth