Adventures of a Modern Farm Family: Coco Thanksgiving 2012

Every year for Thanksgiving we get together with my dad, his brothers and sister, their families and my dad's cousins and their families. My cousin Eddy and his wife Karen are nice enough to host all of us (about 50 people) each year. It is a house full of love, food, fun, alcohol and a bunch of loud Italians loving life! It doesn't get much better than that!

Magen, Alyse, Cecilia, Andrew

Eddy

Love it!

Eddy, Mary, my Dad, Jimmy

Ben, Mary, Rock and Coco

I know that Thanksgiving is only one day, but I start enjoying it as soon as the first Thanksgiving email is sent out. It is a mass email to all of the adults so we can start deciding who is bringing what. Most years everyone brings the same items. There are a couple family members who can only come every other year so things do change a little from year to year. With the large group email you can have at least 20 responses with in a few hours. It isn't all about the food, usually someone is giving someone else a hard time and there are rebuttals and other people chiming in. This year there were also stories about my great grandparents and a debate about pizzelles, an Italian cookie, that we always have at Thanksgiving. It became very obvious that you were either pro or anti pizzelles and both camps had very strong opinions. The anti pizzelle people think the they are gross and don't enjoy breathing the powdered sugar and choking on it while other people think they are good and then other people love the tradition and it reminds them of my great grandma. I truly like pizzelles, especially for breakfast on black Friday with tea. So delicious! My cousin even had t-shirts made up that said "Pro-Pizzelle." I need to get one!

Kristy, Brett and Luke

A table of beautiful women, my aunts and cousins

One of many delicious turkeys

Everyone "helps" grill the turkeys

Janet and my Aunt Carol

Vincent learning to play ping pong

Can you tell he was excited?

Crazy Cecilia

Another part of the emails was a contest my cousin Ryan orchestrated in order to collect some old family photos. I don't know all the details because I didn't pay a lot of attention because I have zero old photos. But I do know that alcohol was a prize! Ryan's contest worked and he was able to collect a lot of old family photos. The plan is that he is going to have them scanned and share them with everyone. That way everyone can have all the pictures instead of them all being scattered throughout the family. It is a wonderful idea and I am truly thankful for all the effort he is putting into this project and for all the people that are sharing their pictures.

Luke and Cecilia

Joel

Joel, it looks like he is up to something.

Brett, Joel and Vincent on the couch

Joel leaping into the pile of cushions

Joel did well considering how many people were at Thanksgiving. Once the kids started jumping off the couch onto the couch cushions on the ground he was in heaven and everyone's best friend. Cecilia spent most of the night getting passed around and loved it. Vincent also loved jumping off the couch and the wrestling he did with his cousin Noah. However, I think his favorite part was playing with some of his older cousins. They helped him play ping pong and let him help with some of the other games they were playing. I guess they asked him his name at one point (they really only all see each other at Thanksgiving) and he said "Vincent Craig Stewart, but you can call me Vincent." They thought he was hilarious from that point on and had as much fun playing with him as be did with them.

Vincent ready to leap

Brett, Joel and Noah

Joel and Noah jumping together

The big kids joined in

Joel and Noah

Thanksgiving seemed to end a little early this year. We were one of the last families to leave at it was only 7pm! It was another wonderful Thanksgiving! I am very blessed to have such a wonderful family. Which I was reminded of as another set of group emails went around after Thanksgiving!