Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday as well as Darren’s so needless to say we are really looking forward to today.  Growing up my family’s ritual was to watch the Thanksgiving Day Parade on television and then prepare the Thanksgiving meal.  My father was the chef for the day giving my Mom a break.  This tradition began the year I was born as my birthday was near Thanksgiving and my mom was still recovering from having given birth.  My parents had a baby nurse who was from Puerto Rico and she taught my Dad how to prepare a traditional Thanksgiving meal with a touch of her spanish heritage thrown in.  As I got older I became my dad’s little helper and loved every minute of it.  I learned all the tricks of cleaning, preparing, cooking and even carving the turkey.  He taught me how to prepare the stock for the stuffing which is my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal.  I even used to sneak a taste or two of the stuffing while we were making it but my favorite part was tasting the crispy skin as the turkey was being carved.  Yummy!  After years of watching and assisting, I mastered the meal and some years I took the reigns and did most of the preparation.  Thanksgiving day was spent with my cousins and as each person got married our table expanded but once everyone started to have children we began to go our separate ways and have been creating new Thanksgiving memories and traditions with our new families.

This Thanksgiving is extra special for me and Darren as it will be baby David’s first Thanksgiving.  We couldn’t be happier to be spending the day with both our families and we are excited to star to build our own Thanksgiving memories with our son.  As David grows up we hope he loves the turkey and stuffing as much as Darren and I do.  We are both saving up our appetite to enjoy the meal.  It’s by far the best holiday of the year!

To all our friends, family and readers, we wish you a very happy thanksgiving!  And for anyone that is brave enough to hit the stores tomorrow for Black Friday, we wish you the best of luck.

Time to watch the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade…..