hey, thanks

Home, check. People I love, check. Massive amounts of amazing food, check. Football, check. Freezing cold South Dakota, check. Ahh, Thanksgiving. I can hardly complain about how cold it was. I literally only went beyond the threshold of the door for about ten minutes between arriving at my parents house on Wednesday night and loading the car to come home on Sunday. It was nice. And I definitely overpacked shoes, considering I didn’t wear any of them over the 4 days.

My mom is just about the best hostess ever. I have lots to live up to in the coming years, most of which I know I will not ever achieve. See? Centerpieces…and leaves…and candles….and little ceramic turkeys. Where do you even get those, mom?! Sheesh.

We have Thanksgiving with my whole family (of 8, not exactly small) plus two families of friends from my parents’ church. It’s a lot of people, food, laughing, and hugging. I don’t even know how long we have been doing holidays this way. Seven or eight years, I think? My dad led us all in communion and it was like celebrating the thing we are most thankful for, then eating a giant feast in celebration of that. Awesome.

My parents have moved into a new house since becoming empty-nesters. This was the first holiday we’ve had in the new place, and it was funny how the setting was totally different, but lots of the tradition was the same. I’m sure I was in the way, bending over and taking weird angle shots of my mom cooking, but I love these images and the way they look like home, even in a place that’s not my home.

Even traditions like mom having this expression on her face. I never said she pulled all this off without getting a bit frantic. We love her though!

But really. She is so cute. She even sent me an invitation to Thanksgiving. Through snail mail. I’m barely scraping together the time to send out emails these days, and she is snail mailing me a handmade Thanksgiving invitaiton with a poem on it. The poem didn’t exactly make sense, but it was funny. It said right there on the invite I was to bring a “Delicious Dessert”. Not just any old, whatever, kinda lame dessert. Let me tell you. This was Delicious with a capital “D”…just in case there was any confusion.

One of my closest friends ever is part of all the Thanksgiving and holiday fun. These are our husbands. Classy.

And as our holiday celebration grows, so do the families that participate. So since I don’t have any of my own little kiddies running around for me to photograph, I had to snag the opportunity to catch a few of these cuties. Adorable? Oh. My. Gosh.

Are you kidding me? I want to take you home with me.

In case you were wondering about the early Christmas present I mentioned, you just looked at it a whole bunch. My parents got me some the original set of Totally Rad Photoshop actions and I am officially addicted. I played with them a bunch on these images – that’s probably why they look all crazy and have mismatched styles and such. Oh well, I’m a little click happy with them. I promise to tone it down as I get used to using them. Promise.

JR