Thanksgiving Dinner for Two (Out of Five)

I love Thanksgiving dinner. We do pretty typical fare, and it's always delicious. This is thanks largely to my husband, who does most of the cooking. Before we moved to DC and left all our then-single and/or childless friends behind in California, we used to host giant Thanksgiving dinners at which everyone made a pig of him or herself.

Since moving to DC, we've had less success. All of our friends have their own Thanksgiving scene, so it often ends up being just our immediate family eating dinner. And I use that term loosely, because my family doesn't really "eat" dinner. They look at it and then demand that it be taken off their plates and put on the tablecloth on the other side of the table.

Why would I expect Thanksgiving to be any different? And frankly, what's the point in cooking a giant Thanksgiving meal if no one's going to eat it?

I mean, I have three kids that won't try raspberry Jell-O with fruit cocktail in it. (I know, it's super classy, but I believe that you CANNOT have Thanksgiving without this particular dish.) They won't eat pie either. Who doesn't eat pie?

But this year I have hope. See that little dude brandishing the broccoli up there? I believe that he's going to get the Best Little Thanksgiving Piggy award. If he'll eat broccoli in spinach dip, he'll probably eat stuffing, right? And maybe peas? And if he eats peas, who's to say that he won't eat turkey and gravy?

My six-year-old claims to be excited to eat turkey this year. And I believe him. I predict that he will seize the drumstick caveman-style and eat off of that. It remains to be seen if he'll get more than two bites in, but even that would be an improvement. When he was two and we'd just moved here, our next-door neighbors invited us to Thanksgiving and this guy refused to eat a single bite. Literally not a single bite. So two bites? That's like a 200% increase in four years.

So that's two kids that might actually eat something. I don't have a lot of expectations for my four year old. I do believe that he'll probably eat his weight in mashed potatoes though, so he won't go completely hungry.

To find out if Jean's predictions were right, check out Stimeyland after Thanksgiving.