Morgan Thanksgiving

DavidInTheKitchen, a photo by CincyJen on Flickr.

This year we had Thanksgiving at our house. Mom made it fun by helping her 4 grandkids make everyone pilgrim or indian hats. David made it fun by dressing as a pilgrim, and a ton of FaceBook posts (and also fun for me by doing ALL the work). (listed after the photo slide show) We had Megan, and she spent a good bit of time with my nieces, Heather and Robyn. Also, at some point Heather and Robyn got onto David's FB account. Many "un-David-like" posts followed. (I've listed them too) There were plent of leftovers, especially desserts. David and I have pretty much taken care of that by now. (Dec 4)

We had 24 people total. It was gorgeous outside, and a lot of time was spent on the deck and trampoline. David's pre-Thanksgiving FaceBook posts:
15-Nov:
I have been informed I am hosting thanksgiving at my house this year. If you are not invited to the party then ignore my posts for a while as they are just house rules. 1. If you are under 5'10" and a woman or 6' and a man you will not be seated at the main table. In other words if you are not genetically a Morgan, "sucks to be you"

16-Nov:
Seats at the adult table adjacent (the dinning room converted to a computer room converted back to a dinning room for the day) will be auctioned off day of. The bidding will start at clearing the table/doing the dishes and go up from there. The auction is " day of" because once the bidders see seating option 3 I think the bidding will be brisk.

16-Nov:
We will have all the well known traditional Thanksgiving food along with some lesser know thanksgiving food. Do to our failed public school system most people are not aware that the pilgrims were huge into desert. We'll have New York style cheesecake although they called it "that place up north style cheese cake" . Also there are rumors of Frisches pecan pie and a cake made with 7 layers of chocolate to be thankful for.

16-Nov:
My house, my rules, so I am exercising executive privilege and changing rule 24 chapter 6 subsection 5 of The Morgan Holiday Charter as it pertains to the 5 second rule. The new rule is if food hits the floor and you get to it before the dog does it's yours. In in effort to maintain transparency in decision making I will tell you this effectively makes it a 2 second rule. Note to seniors and children: do not drop your food. You're not that fast.

16-Nov:
I have put my brother Danny in charge of the entertainment steering committee. We need to fill a little more time this year as thanksgiving will be in Ohio instead of Kentucky which means our annual game of spin the bottle is out.

16-Nov:
Just bought the turkey. I got all three kinds. White meat, dark meat and nugget meat. Not sure what part of the turkey the nugget comes from but because I love my kids I spent the extra money and bought the one that said '50% less beak'

17-Nov:
Alright family it's the weekend before thanksgiving and I suggest you use it to work on your "thankful fors" so we don't have a replay of last years debacle where mom prattled on like an independent movie director accepting his Oscar. We get it mom, we're awesome and our kids are awesome, move it along. If you see me give you the wrap it up sign you have one more "thankful for" or we go to commercial and when come back someone else will be in your seat and you'll be out on the deck.

18-Nov:
Just finished the food shopping for the family Thanksgiving dinner and we spared no expense. The less refined serve turducken (chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey), but we're serving vealambda (baby sheep stuffed in a baby cow stuffed in a baby panda). We are also serving caviar, but not just any caviar, beluga caviar. And not just any beluga caviar consisting of only female eggs sorted by blind Buddhist monks on Vesak (Buddha's birthday). The most lavish of all is the stuffing. Ordinarily made of stale bread, our stuffing will be made with stale Twinkies bought on ebay AFTER Hostess went out of business.

19-Nov:
Only three days til the T-day invasion. After living in ohio all these years I feel I feel have lost touch with my Kentucky inbred redneck hillbilly heritage. Thank goodness for back episodes of Honey Boo Boo. If anyone out there has nothing to do on thanksgiving and is fluent in English and Kentuckaneese you are invited and all you have to do is translate.

19-Nov:
For all those attending the Morgan Family Thankapalooza Festival this Thursday here is the order of events. At 12:00 we will start the pre-eating. This will consist of food the pilgrims would have eaten had they gone to a Super Bowl party. At 1:00 we will say grace, and you'll want to be here for this because Uncle Danny says he's bringing his “A” game. Immediately following everyone will simultaneously and spontaneously thank God that all these people did not show up at THEIR house. Then everyone will fill their plates and in honor of our Native American friends we'll start playing "Apache Jump On It" as everyone moves around the house (note to self: download Apache Jump On It). When the music stops everyone dives for a chair. Anyone left without a seat.........sucks to be you. Two important things to consider 1) Grandma Joyce has a bad hip and 2) Aunt Nancy is a biter. I won't need a seat as Jen will have me chained to the stove as usual. At 2:00 we will break out the desserts and decide what games will be played. Remember spin the bottle is off the table as we will be in Ohio this year. I'm sure Danny will bring something. From then on there is only one rule. What happens at The MorganFamily Thankapalooza stays at The Morgan Family Thankapalooza

20-Nov:
If anyone wants/needs coffee Thursday bring your own creamer....... and coffee......and coffee maker.

20-Nov:
Special instructions for my Kentucky guests: We have four bathrooms in our house, 2 upstairs one on the middle floor and one downstairs. That thing you'll see out back is a shed not an outhouse. We do not use hillbilly curse words like "tarnation", "dagnabit" and "Wildcats" in our house. Please do not use them around my children. Our Ohio friends will receive a goody bag with a copy of The Night Before Christmas to take home with them. We realize there are stiff penalties for smuggling books into Kentucky so they will receive a DVD of Dukes of Hazard: Complete Second Season. Also we have bought butter from the store leave the churn at home. If, on the way to my house, you see road kill that looks too good to pass up, PLEASE try to anyway. We will have plenty of corn but none of it will be in the form of ‘bread’ or ‘squeezins’. Pets are allowed as long as they are bigger than a breadbox. Pets smaller than a breadbox will immediately be eaten by Morgan (yes people our dogs name is Morgan Morgan deal with it).

21-Nov:
This is the furthest my family has ever had to drive for a Thanksgiving meal so I see two possible outcomes. 1. They stop somewhere along the way and get gas station food or 2 Somewhere near Kenwood they go Donner Party and only half of them make it.

21-Nov:
This is the official complaint policy for Thankapalooza 2012. If you have a complaint it must first be presented to Grandma Joyce. If her meandering story that she then tells you about some thanksgiving 60 years ago that has nothing to do with your complaint does not placate you then you can move on to step two. If, after using your outdoor voice indoors for 10 minutes while Papaw nods and pretends like he hears what you’re saying, you are not too exhausted to complain further you may then move on to step 3. Step 3 consists of me ME staring at YOU with equal parts disdain and disbelief until your complaint hole tires and shuts. If, within a reasonable amount of time, this doesn’t make you more thankful and less whiny you may then and only then take your complaint to Jen. I have to warn you though if your complaint makes it all the way to Jen there better be people running around and yelling stuff like “dial 911!” and “don’t go into the light”. After that all complaints go to God and you are much closer to meeting him than you know.

22-Nov:
We have gone a little over budget for Thankapalooza so we are instituting some pricing changes. General admission is still free, however admission into the dessert room is $5. There will also be a $2 fee for the code to our wifi. General seating in the football lounge is still free but preferred seating is $10. Please bring cash and small bills, as we will not be able to make change.

22-Nov:
Raise your hand if you correctly assumed I had a pilgrim outfit from thanksgiving day runs gone by. P.S. I would never do something as offensive as dressing like a Native American to run. I'm talking to you jean.

POSTS FROM DAVID'S ACCOUNT ON THANKSGIVING (not by David):
I'm blessed beyond measure. I don't deserve the family I've been born into. I'm so thankful for each and every one of them. — with Joyce Ann Morgan and 10 others.

"Berries and cream, berries and cream, I'm a little lad who loves berries and cream" Can't help but sing and prance around in my beyound FaBuLoUs get-up! #overgrownleperchaun

At this time of being thankful I just want to share how thankful I am for my fabulous niece Robyn Moyer, and I would like to apologize for all those years of accusing her of being a lesbian, it turns out shes a pretty cool chick who has encouraged me to be a fabulous uncle!!! #robynrocks #sorry

Guess who left their FB account open [that was me - Jennifer]

Guess who loves their family with all their heart and soul?! This guy does!!! — with Rebecca White and 9 others.

I am such a dork... I don't know what I would do without my Moyer family!

I am so blessed to have such a wonderful family. I'm so happy I can barely hold back the tears......oh someone please get me the tissues. sniff, sniff.

Bark, bark, bark, bark.

POSTS AFTER THANKSGIVING WAS OVER (these are actually David):
22-Nov:
evidently leaving your facebook open is an invitaion for people to post on your page. what did I ever say or do to them.........................oh yeah maybe it was the hilbilly stuff. well played family well played

23-Nov:
All in all I think The Morgan Family Thankapalooza went well. 24 people and everyone got fed. About 1/2 of them ended up jumping on the trampoline since it was so nice outside. About 1/3 of them posted self aggrandizing stuff on my trustingly left open Facebook page. I even got to bed at a decent time so I could get up at 4am for the Dollar Store Black Friday deals. Everything in the store was marked down to 99 cents. EVERTHING! I don't want to ruin the surprise but the kids are getting lots of toys with lead based paint and Jen is getting a Christmas oven mitt. I can't wait to see their excitement Christmas morning.