– Giving Thanks –

I feel like Thanksgiving is far too often the forgotten holiday. Once Halloween is over (and sometimes even before), stores immediately get the holiday decorations on the shelves and the music playing in the speakers. Now don’t get me wrong, Christmas is hands down my favorite holiday. There’s nothing better than decorations everywhere, holiday music, great food, time with family, celebrating His birth…all of it. But, I am also a big fan of thanksgiving!

When I was growing up, my family used to drive to Mississippi and meet at my grandma’s house. My brother and his family would come from Tennessee, we’d come from Texas, my uncle and his family would come from another part of Mississippi and we would be together. As a family. And eat. And then eat some more because man can my grandma make a mean thanksgiving meal! Because of this, thanksgiving has always been the family holiday for me. Eat with the family, spend time with the family, catch up with the family, just family. It’s been several years since we all made the trip to Grandma’s house, but I have still be ingrained with that sense of togetherness. And eating.

Today, my husband and I will be spending thanksgiving with both sets of parents. One of the best parts of getting married has been the two thanksgiving meals we get to eat 🙂 I told both of my mom and my mama (I call my mother in law mama) I’d provide dessert this year because I love to bake. I don’t know what it is about baking but I find it oddly therapeutic. I love to research recipes, try news things, make stuff from scratch just to see how it will turn out. It’s fun for me! (Odd side note, as much as I love baking, I don’t care much for cooking. I find this strange.) Plus, I have a fabulous aunt who gave me a Kitchenaid stand mixer as a wedding gift and I like putting it to good use 😉

When trying to decide what I’d be preparing this year, I knew I’d have to make something chocolate because I love anything and everything chocolate.  However, my husband doesn’t care for chocolate so I wanted to make something chocolate free as well. I realize that the typical dish to prepare as a easy solution for my chocolateless dessert would be a pumpkin pie. However, I not only don’t like pumpkin pie (gasp!), I don’t like anything about pumpkin pie…including the smell of it baking, so I opted not to make one. Instead, I chose a couple of fantastic recipes I found on the fabulous Bakerella blog. If you like to bake or just look for a great dessert recipe every now and then, you need to familiarize yourself with Bakerella. She’s not only got wonderful recipes, they are easy to follow and always yummy!! So after some looking around, I chose to make a chocolate trifle (because really, how can you go wrong with layer after layer of chocolate?!) and a cheesecake (one of the only desserts my husband likes). They both turned out looking quite tasty…let’s just hope they are!

And because I don’t like to leave a post picturesless, here are 3 boys I am ever so thankful for!

I have so many wonderful things to be thankful for this year and I feel wonderfully blessed with the life I have. My cup truly runneth over. Here’s wishing you all a wonderful day full of thanks, family, and fantastic food 🙂