Thanksgiving 2011 & Deviled Ham w/ Green Olives Dip

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. I enjoyed our Thanksgiving, we celebrated at home with my mother and father in-law. We normally have a full house, but this year everyone was off visiting other relatives. Although I missed seeing all of my family, it was a nice day.

I really enjoy cooking Thanksgiving dinner, we stick with a very traditional menu, Turkey with Mashed potatoes and Homemade gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and yes, we have the kitschy but tasty green bean casserole & yams covered in toasty brown yummy marshmallows. For dessert I always bake 4 pumpkin pies, that way there will be plenty for all, as well as enough to have plenty of servings of pie with tea and coffee for the next few days.

I love baking pumpkin pie, I have always had good luck with the recipe right off the can of Libby's Pumpkin. I make my own pie crust as well, but I still have more work to do perfecting my pie crust. I just cannot seem to crimp my pie crust edges properly, I have been baking pies for years and I never get it right, so I make my pie edges pretty using mini canape and cookie cutters. This year I used mini pumpkin, leaf, and acorn cutters and attach them using a little cold water.

Here's how the edges turned out.

I also like to serve a cracker spread appetizer before the meal is served, so everyone can nibble while they wait for the big meal. This year I made a very yummy Cracker Spread- Deviled ham with Green Olives.

Here's the recipe:

2 blocks of cream cheese softened

1 1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

25 chopped green olives plus 8 more chopped green olives for garnish

1 can of Deviled Ham

Mix all of the ingredients together, when combined transfer to serving dish, garnish with additional chopped olives cover and chill for a few hours or overnight. Serve with Crackers. This spread could be made vegetarian by omitting the deviled ham and Worcestershire sauce and maybe adding a little garlic powder and a handful of grated cheddar cheese. I love the flavor of green olives!

I love Thanksgiving, it is so important to remember the things we are Thankful for. I am so thankful for my family, My husband Gary and my children Sarah and Joseph, they bring me so much joy! I am thankful for our health and safety this year. We are blessed to have a nice home and good food. Our two labs Zoey and Xena add so much to our home, we all love them. I am so thankful for this blog, and how much fun I have had this year writing about my family and home, and I am thankful for all of the wonderful blogs I have read this year, I feel like I have met so many wonderful people! Most of all I am so thankful for my faith in God, and my savior Jesus, who I go to with all of my worries and who provides and cares for me and my family.

To me a holiday celebrating gratitude is the perfect way to kick off the holiday Christmas season. Thinking about all of the things we are blessed with is a nice tone to set for Christmas which can, if left unchecked, become a very materialistic holiday. I love celebrating Christmas, with all of its trappings, I am excited to share about our Christmas this year.

Today we got our Christmas lights up, we normally have them up the week of Thanksgiving, so we can light them up on Thanksgiving evening, but the rain kept us from putting them up until today. The weather was beautiful and sunshiny, and Gary and Joe got the lights up in no time, while me and Sarah worked on projects in the house to get ready to put up all of our Christmas decorations.

Here are Gary & Joseph putting up our lights.

This cute little frog hopped on by to see what was going on. He looked pretty next to the purple cabbage.

Here are the lights all lit up! I love Christmas lights, can't wait to drive through the neighborhood and see all of the decorated houses!

Lastly I would like to share a couple of wonderful Christmas DVDs that I recommend, these movies get me in the Christmas mood and ready for Winter.

Stranger in the Woods is a wonderful nature filled movie about a snowman that appears in the woods and how the wildlife reacts to it. This movie shows the forest animals like little deer investigating the snowman. Cute, peaceful little movie. We all enjoy it, this movie was a big hit when my kids were younger as well. As an adult I enjoy seeing all of the nature scenes. Just a nice happy show to put on, and wonderful for teaching about winter!

Here is my Amazon affiliate link.

The next DVD I love to watch is Rick Steves' European Christmas. I first saw this on PBS years ago. I enjoy Rick Steves' travel shows, he always visits such great places. In this DVD Rick visits with his family, Christmas in England, Norway, France, Germany, Italy and the Swiss Alps. So many wonderful traditions to see, some very pretty music, and great European scenery. I love to incorporate traditions from around Europe in our home, and I have always enjoyed learning about Christmas around the world. I can watch this movie a couple of times every year and I never get tired of it. This would also be great for teaching older children different Christmas traditions. I hope you can catch this show on your local PBS, or possibly from the library.

Here is my Amazon link for this DVD as well.

I hope everyone is having a nice weekend, and having fun getting ready for Christmas!