But the Fire is so Delightful

Chris started calling the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving “Thanksg-evening.” This is the night where the important prep work is done, and “the World Turned Upside Down” album is played. I make awesome cranberry sauce anyway, but this year’s experimentation resulted in my best cranberry sauce yet: Brandy Apple Cider Cranberry Sauce!

Chris and I brined the turkey with dried herbs brought from our FL garden. He carried on the tradition of the Manly Art of Pie Making and produced his best pumpkin pies EVER.

When we were little, the kids made the stuffing. We toasted endless amounts of bread and cut it into pieces. My dad recently laughed about how the best way to occupy the kids while the parents did real prep was to give us a bunch of dull knives and let us loose on that task. And here I thought we were doing meaningful work!

Isaac is still a bit young for anything involving the toaster unsupervised, so I had a brilliant idea: marshmallows! I asked him to please build a tower out of toothpicks and big and little marshmallows. This was a big hit. Too big of a hit, actually. Chris and I joined him in marshmallow building, which evolved into a blind taste test (Campfire marshmallows are unanimously better than Jiff or Jet or whatever) and further progressed into roasting marshmallows over the fire. By the time we got around to the traditional prep work, Isaac was stuffed full of marshmallows and we were out of toothpicks. Ha ha. Guess who ate no dinner that night? We’ll try that after dinner next year I guess.

Eloise and I were there, too. Baby selfie!

Mari’s Brandy Apple Cider Cranberry Sauce

1 package cranberries

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup brandy

1 cup apple cider

Bring the apple cider, Brandy and sugar to a boil. Add rinsed cranberries, reserving 3 berries. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until the berries have mostly popped. Use a wooden spoon to flatten and burst any remaining berries for good consistency. Cool, pour into a dish, cover and refrigerate. I am making this for Christmas for sure. With those three berries you reserved at the beginning, stir up a:

Brandy Apple Cider

Pour a shot if brandy into a small glass of cider. Garnish with frozen cranberries. Yum!

Friday morning we had Chris’ delicious pie for breakfast of course. Then we took down all the fall decorations and hustled them up to the attic. Next stop? A tree lot!

Eloise cries all the time. ALL THE TIME. For this outing, however, she enjoyed being zipped into my puffer vest. It was really really cold. Lots of elderly ladies smiled at us. We got a huge tree. Chris tied it to the top of the car. So far, so good.

“THE TREE IS FALLING DOWN! IT IS FALL OFF THE CAR! DON’T GO FAST! THE TREE IS FALL OFF THE CAR!”

“Isaac, buddy! It’s ok! Dad has tied lots of trees to the car. It’s ok!”

“IS NOT OK! THE TREE IS FALLING DOWN!”

“What’s the worst that could happen? It falls off the car. Then we’ll stop and tie it back on. It’s ok.”

“NOOOOOOO! IS FALLING DOWN!”

Almost home, we turned left and the tree shifted to the right a little. Isaac could see it out his right side window. DISASTER. Absolute panic. The only thing that mollified him was for us to open the sunroof and hold it with our hands. And turn the dome light on to help the tree stay on. Unfortunately we forgot to turn off said dome light and it killed my car battery yesterday right around the time our tree tipped over, but whatever. One disaster at a time.

“Who says I cry all the time? Maybe I just want one of those brandy apple ciders! Look how cute I am.”

“Oh no! The tree fall down! Look, Mommy, I deeeecorate.”

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