its the simple things: My semi-traditional Thanksgiving

Oh Turkey Day.... one of my favorites! Ah, who are we kidding...everything is pretty much my favorite.

Anyway, this year's Thanksgiving was probably my second favorite one ever. My favorite was a beautiful one spent at the beach with my family a few years ago at the below table dining on turkey and oysters (and it was the last time I was actually home for Thanksgiving).

As much as I missed my family and my NC and MI friends this year, I had a blast with Landon and all of my CA friends. Here is where the "semi-traditional" part comes in. I hosted 22 people at my house this year. 3 of us were born in the United States. That's right. Three. Including Landon and myself. Here was this year's Thanksgiving by the numbers:

1 - 24 lb turkey (which I cooked myself for the first time ever! Can I get a woot-woot?)
22 - friends present
6 - countries represented (Colombia, Germany, Ecuador, Paraguay, Spain, United States) (and a lot of Spanish spoken!)
7 - first-timers to this holiday
And too much wine to count the bottles!

As per the nature of this holiday, there was SO MUCH FOOD! But again, it was a semi-traditional Thanksgiving. Meaning that I provided the staples of this country (turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, creamed collard greens, biscuits, gravy, pecan pie, and pumpkin pie) and my Colombian/German/Ecuadorian/Paraguay....ians?/Spaniards provided a whole mess of delicious food from their countries that I can't even pronounce/remember. And ceviche. Which I love. It. Was. Awesome.

I am so thankful for these wonderful people in my life, and so thankful that we could be together on such a wonderful holiday! They were a great "fake family" for the day :) And I am so, SO thankful that I could be with Landon since I won't get to see him over Christmas.

Home fry's turkey day even got to start off with a little surfing. How bout them apples for non-traditional, eh?

Now, I'm no food-blogger (which means I don't take good food pictures, as CLEARLY evidenced by the below photos), but that is a fine-lookin' bird, if I do say so myself!

Sylvana and Luci breaking the wishbone on their first Thanksgiving! They didn't really understand this concept.... ha.

Also, since I have no counter space, all tables were pretty much occupied and we ate on the floor.... Japanese style! Don't tell Martha Stewart or Southern Living.