A new type of giving Thanks

This Thanksgiving was the first time in my life that I have not had the traditional go to mom's family for dinner then off to dad's family for another smorgasbord of food in one day. This year was Matt and my Thanksgiving as a small family, inviting family and friends to share this with us.
We invited family parents and sisters from both sides and friends such as
Cathryn, the Boutot's and even the Buena family. My dad had to work and Matt's mom had to work so the family that showed was my mom, sister, and nephew; Cathryn was the only friend to show but she brought one of her friends. So we had a hodgepodge of family and friends to share Thanksgiving with.
We had looked through our subscription of Bon'Appatite Magazine and picked out what we thought would be the best Thanksgiving meal ever. We shopped at the Whole Food's Market to find the finest most fresh herbs, spices, and vegetables. Then we got up early Thursday morning to start the preparation of this wonderful meal. Matt was head chef and I was his sidekick. I spent most of the day chopping and dicing while he read recipes and pulled things in and out of the oven.
So our guests arrive at 6 pm right on schedule and the turkey is still not done. It is very hard to time the cook times of so many items with only one oven but Matt did a splendid job. We had some very nice cheese the we had also purchased at the Whole Foods store. If I were well off I would spend lots of money at this place. The wine was flowing between Cathryn and myself. In total for dinner we had a bottle of Champagne, one and a half bottles of wine, 2 wine coolers, and multiple beer between the 5 of us, Dan had H2O.
Between comments about Julie's oven rack, Matt's cake having a nice crumb, and the poor construction of our mix-matched dining chairs we worked off our meal by laughing. So this Thanksgiving I gave thanks to good food, good friends and laughter.