Thanksgiving Day started early here at The Manse, beginning with a text from the youngest WP Sister at 5:44AM: “Power out as of 3AM. Turkey in precarious state. Do you have power?”
Thus began the Great Nor’easter Thanksgiving Day ‘adventure’.
I had to roust BeezleBub out of his slumber to fire up the Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower to clear the snow that had fallen since last night, making it possible for my sister to make it down the driveway. I got the oven prepped and cleaned up the of last of last night’s dishes before the WP Sis and the turkey arrived.(Note: We had over 12 inches of wet, heavy snow, hence our problems with over 200,000 power outages all over New Hampshire .)
The youngest WP Sister, aka ‘Bean’, packaged up our 36lb turkey and brought it to The Manse. At 6:45AM the turkey was in the oven.
At 8AM the power here at The Manse went out. A call to the power company and we found out power wasn’t likely to be restored until 11AM.
Texts back and forth and a few phone calls later and the turkey was on its way to the WP Nephew’s home on the other side of town and into its third oven.
Because of the lack of power, Bean and the WP Mom were at one of our local eateries for breakfast. It turns out it was the same eatery from which we had ordered some pies for our Thanksgiving feast, so they picked them up on their way out, saving us a trip.
At 10AM the power came back on! That meant the turkey needed to come back here since the WP Nephew had a turkey to cook for his family, too. So once again the 36lb bird traveled from one oven to another.
All of our plans were for Thanksgiving dinner at the WP Mom's. But the lack of power at her abode made that impossible, so all of our celebrations had to be moved to The Manse. The problem: we'd made no preparations to receive the dozen or so guests, the house was not set up (or cleaned) to accommodate guests, and we lacked the tables and chairs needed. We had quite a time picking up the needed items and getting them to The Manse.
The WP clan was able to move the feast location, ensure the huge turkey was cooked to perfection along with all the trimmings, all while making accommodations for extra guests who were forced to abandon their original Thanksgiving plans, and do this in less then two hours.
As more than one family member stated at the end of the festivities, this will be one of those Thanksgivings that will be remembered by all for years to come.
