Thanksgiving Weekend in Livermore

We never remember to take a photo before the turkey is carved!  It still looked appetizing when Frank carried the platter of sliced meat to the table on Thanksgiving afternoon.

The huge turkey platter is the very same one that Frank, as a child,
brought home on the bus as a Christmas present for his mom.

Dan, Carrie, Vivian, and Snoopy had endured an arduous, heavy traffic laden, drive up from SoCal the night before. That behind them, the weekend turned more enjoyable. We had ten for dinner: Frank, Alex, me, Dan, Carrie, Vivian, and a family of four. The added family was a mom, dad, and two kids who were friends of Dan and Carrie from Southern California who were stranded in San Jose during their travels up north due to some car problems. They joined us at the last minute, were a great addition, and we still had tons of food to spare. We ate the standard combination of turkey/stuffing/gravy/cranberry-sauce, sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes, corn casserole, and broccoli casserole.

All that is missing from this scene is the turkey and people sitting down to eat it.

Vivian, who is 7½ months old, was all bedecked in her Thanksgiving finery, complete with her turkey cap. She made sure she practiced her standing and pre-cruising skills near our large ottoman in the living room.

Vivian's shirt reads "mommy is THANKFUL for me".
Grandma is very thankful for her, too!

Think Vivian will be walking soon?

Vivian, had her first cookie ever at Grandma's house, shaped like a turkey, of course.

"Hmmm... What is this? "

"I think I like this!"  It was the first time Carrie let Vivian have anything with sugar.

Here is the vintage Hallmark Cookie cutter used to shape the turkey cookie.
I have a collection of Hallmark cookie cutters spanning all the holidays.

The cookie recipe came from Aunt Maxine and it is one I have used for years. She got it from her son Glenn's nursery school in the early 1970's. It's a classic.

Not very fancy but very yummy! A holiday tradition for us.

The food processor I used to make these cookies is also a classic! It is a Robot Coupe food processor that I take out from the bottom of my island cabinet several times a year only to make these cookies at the holidays. I came across a 2005 blog post by someone with a photo of my very same processor. I kinda got a kick out of that post. That processor was abandoned in someone's garage but I still use mine several times a year for these cut-out cookies. The Robot Coupe had its start in the 1960's in France and paved the way for the introduction of the Cuisinart into the United States in the 1970s. (See this Wiki link.)

My trusty Robot Coupe is on the left. The one abandoned in a garage in New York in on the right.

We did activities other than eating over the weekend (though not many). Carrie ran a 10K Turkey Trot Thanksgiving morning and I forgot to watch the Macy Thanksgiving Day Parade as usual. Alex was content to do puzzles while watching videos throughout Thanksgiving Day. The rest of the weekend we just relaxed. We took a stroll in downtown Livermore. Dan and Carrie went to a movie and did some wine tasting while Frank and I watched Vivian. Frank and Alex went bowling. Dan played the piano a bit. We played a game of Farkle. Vivian had a quite lengthy phone conversation with Aunt Maxine, yammering away in baby dialect with voice inflections and all.  She was very vocal in the tale she had to tell but its details were very much left up to the imagination and interpretation of the listener.

With the occasional encouragement to "tell me more", Vivian "talked" for quite a while.
Dan and Carrie will have no phone time when she is a teenager!

The weather was gorgeous. Frank and Dan kicked back some out on our back deck. Carrie got a stretch of some uninterrupted time to work on her photo album on our computer.  

No. I do not know what they were looking at, but I thought the picture was a funny one of father and son.

We are very thankful for family and the good visiting time we had this Thanksgiving 2014.

Frank, Dan, Carrie, Vivian, Alex, and me on Thanksgiving Day 2014.
There is a sneak peak of our not yet decorated and first ever artificial tree in the background.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!