Thanksgiving 2006

What a wonderful day Thanksgiving turned out to be. And, boy, am I glad that it is over. After spending a lot of time preparing for this day, it flew by in a few short hours. Most of my guests were rather dubious when we told them that the dinner was being held in our garage but this was the only solution that I could think of for the ever growing numbers in the Shirk family tree. This year we ended up with 23 people, a few less than we thought we would have but still a large number for a tiny house like ours. For the first time since we have been holding Thanksgiving dinners, two of Bill's children were able to attend. Previously, Angi and her sons (aka AFGirl89 and her Three Wingmen) were stationed in Texas so travel to our house for dinner was a little difficult but they are now stationed at Dover AFB so they were a welcome addition to our family gathering. Pictured to the left are two of the Wingmen awaiting their turn for dinner. And another pleasant surprise was the arrival of Bill's other daughter who flew in from Columbus, Ohio, to introduce us to her husband to be. The unfortunate part of that visit was that her children were both with their father so we didn't get to see them. So, to get back to the dinner in the garage thing, everyone laughed at me about this but it turned out to be a great idea. Bill had recently added an "attic" to the garage and moved most of the normal garage items up to it. Then he had epoxied the floor so it was nice and clean and shiny looking. We added a bunch of $1 store tablecloths to cover the walls which are at this time unfinished, put a bunch of tables and chairs in and it looked a lot like a cafeteria style setting. Good thing we are not a family of formal people who prefer crystal and silverware for their dinners. Good old paper plates and plastic ware were perfect for us.

We had fully expected that people would eat in the garage and then come in the house to watch the football games but that isn't what happened. Someone mentioned getting a poker game together and unbelievalby - I had a brand new poker game which I had won at the Delaware Games gathering to provide to them. They were thrilled to have plastic chips to play with and not to have to dig out any pennies. Funny thing again, the big winner of the day was Zachary, the ten year old first time player! And Steeler Santa Bill appears to have been the big loser! Even more so when his Steelers were trounced (did I say that) in Sunday's game! He wasn't wearing his Steeler Santa hat when I got home from boxing on Sunday! And the best part about the poker marathon in the garage was - my house stayed clean! Except for the bathrooms being used and some of the kids coming in to watch movies, everyone stayed in the garage to socialize, eat desserts and play cards. It was wonderful!

Of course, for me the best part of the day was sharing it with Out of Sight and my Lil Milkmonster. It doesn't get any better than that for me!