Gobble Gobble Toil and Trouble

Happy Holidays! I just love this time of year, truly the fall and winter and early spring just my favorite time of year. Something about fall makes everyone seem happier. People do more random acts of kindness, something about the holidays make people realize they are humans, we are all humans and being kind to your fellow humans feels good. I’ve never understood it, but the power of it is palpabile. It helps people feel better, stronger, and heal, or atleast me 🙂

I had planned a pre-thanksgiving day event. I love having parties, they are a labour of love, especially now when my energy is just often times so dynamically low, because parties are super high energy. Thanksgiving has always been a holiday I have enjoyed, turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin, family, friends, happy memories, and so so many things to be thankful for… whats not to love. I decided back in August that I wanted to plan a party for this year. This year has been a hard year for me, it isn’t the last hard year (at least not that I’m allowing yet) but it is a hard year, so many health things on a difficult path, I wanted a chance to get lots of hugs, and to celebrate life.

It was a fun exercise to plan this party. To pick out cute invitations, to plan for the count, and send them, and then to see who would be able to attend. I planned this for the weekend before the actual holiday, because I know the holiday is kinda difficult and tricky for alot of my family and friends – with inlaws and so many family, sometimes the actual holiday becomes an exercise in planning. I figured with it on a Saturday, it would be so much easier for people to negotiate, and while I knew that it being the weekend before it might work out better or worse for some. Just all the best of hopes.

In past years, I have really enjoyed cooking for this holiday. I love the pagendry of preparing a turkey and a feast. Its alot of work, but the labour always feels somehow satisfying in a way that many other things do not. This year however, I am recognizing my limitations, and physically being able to do this work was beyond my current capacity. I started looking at alternative options, because I didn’t want my invitees to need to do anything other than attend and enjoy. I was blessed by finding an incredible helpful site, that had amazing reviews (https://www.bestmobilechef.com/ ) I got connected with a really great lady, and it was both reasonable, and overall amazing. She helped develop a menu and get me a quote that was – well it was more than if I’d have bought all the individual components and cooked it myself, but it wasn’t double that cost, which really felt remarkable.

We have paid for the “get it from the grocery store” type of thanksgiving spread in the past, but since it requires you to do all the cooking, I’ve been very let down with that in the past, because it seemed like “oh here we are going to charge you a little more than if you just bought the stuff, and oh the only time savings you will have really is that you can be dumb and not know how to cook things, and we will give you step by step instructions.” Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t horrible, but most of the stuff they gave us was heavily processed, with a ton of preservatives, and so it ended up tasting much less delicious than when I did it myself, so it was both more expensive, and no real time savings. Overall, not the way to go for “the best”.

This catering option, which was something I’d never really considered is a different type of situation. I am not going to say that I would absolutely repeat it – if I were able it would always be my preference to buy, prepare, cook it myself – its just more satisfying. I will say however, this option was serendipitously perfect. I had a chef show up at my house about an hour before our planned meal time, with all of the food, hot and ready to eat. The chef had made a menu I knew precisely what to expect, and accommodated my vegetarian and vegan guests, as well as the specific number of RSVP I had made. Overall 10/10 of experiences.

The party itself was magical. Just what I had hoped for when I was envisioning it in my mind. There were many of the people I had invited that were not able to attend. We had invited a few folks last minute that were not on my original invite list. We had a good blend of family and friends. We had a good blend of generational mix, we had happy people that showed up, we enjoyed each others company, we laughed, we gamed, we ate, and then they left and went home. Due to the catering, the clean up was pretty straight forward, and there were a few left overs but not too much, just the right amount.

I went to bed after the party feeling both exhausted and satisfied in a way that I haven’t felt in a long time. It was a happy pleasant feeling. Those types of feelings that you want to linger, but your also glad when you get to rest like a bear hibernating thru winter.

Happy Thanksgiving.

This week I am recovering, because I also used this day of my party as an official, planned, and hedonistic cheat day. I had so much horribly bad for me foods that day, that it will be a week or more to fully recover. I had round rock donuts, something I haven’t done in like two years. I had butter beer (thank you to my sister, and the universe for making both warm and hot) – which I also tried alcoholic – something I haven’t enjoyed in probably closer to 4 years… I had pie – so so glorious pie. I just love pumpkin. All of it made me feel pretty sick, but enjoying it and enjoying time with family and friends was worth every moment.

This week is about recovering. Getting my tummy back to its happy place, so it can keep healing cancer. Detoxing from all the carbs, and the sugar of the cheating day, and generally getting myself ready for the upcoming treatment tomorrow, and then surgery in 2 weeks. I have a plan, we are back to working the plan.

While I’m happy for the rest of the world for the holiday this week, for me, my thanksgiving was on Saturday. I am thankful for all the loves, and family in my life. I am happy for those that attended, and I am happy for those that were unable. I am happy that life is good for so many of the ones I love. I am happy that life is so good for me.

I am thankful for being able to celebrate life being good.

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