The Un-Traditional Thanksgiving

[Pictures Coming Soon...]

We had the most wonderful Thanksgiving. For our 5th Thanksgiving away from Utah we went to the Macy's 85th Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. The day could not have been more perfect. I have so much to be thankful for.

Thanksgiving Dinner

For us, Thanksgiving started on Sunday, Nov. 20 with the traditional turkey dinner that Richard usually cooks the Sunday before Thanksgiving(1). This year was perhaps the best turkey we've ever eaten. He's been using some tips and tricks from my mom (e.g., using a turkey bag) and reading about how to improve his culinary skills online. After a few years of practice and putting all of this knowledge together he really outdid himself and cooked an exceptional Thanksgiving dinner. In fact, everything was warm and done at the same time. Here's a pic of how organized he was. He knew exactly what time to make everything and put it in the oven. We invited a few friends over to enjoy the dinner with us. They stayed and played games with us that evening.

Macy's 85th Thanksgiving Day Parade

The evening before Thanksgiving we drove to Nazareth, PA and stayed with a family in the area so we would only have an hour and a half to drive to NYC the next morning. We woke up bright and early at 5 a.m. and headed for Jersey City where we caught the 7:10 a.m. train into 33rd street. From there we took the subway to the southwest corner of Central Park. We walked around the parade route, and for a while we were one of the few people who were "smart" enough to bypass the crowds on the sidewalk--and ignore the police in the streets--and walk on the street down the parade route in front of the zillions of police officers and people. So I guess you could say for awhile we were the pre-parade. Despite the millions of people on the sidewalks, we really enjoyed walking back and forth to various "potential" spots seeking the perfect location. Right before the parade reached us we found a spot between 7th avenue and 55th street where we watched the parade. Oh the blessings of being tall. I would not like to be short and on the streets of NYC watching that parade. It would be way too hard to see anything. Being tall has great advantages.

After the parade we walked back to the Time Warner building and did a little shopping. Then we ate lunch (turkey sandwiches) in Central Park. Afterwards we walked to the Manhattan New York LDS Temple. Then we walked around Central Park and over to the southeast corner of the park where we ventured into FAO Schwartz. Then we headed down 5th avenue to 33rd street. During our walk we stopped at Rockerfeller Center, went into one of the Trump Towers, saw the Empire State Building, and took pictures of the infamous NYC Library where my brothers like to remind us is where Ghostbusters was filmed. Last, we walked over to Macy's. It was closed, but we got some great outdoor pictures of it. We've been in the store before and it is literally what the store claims, the largest store in the world.

After seeing and doing everything we wanted to that day in NYC we headed for the train and then drove home. But before we arrived home we stopped at Cracker Barrel for some grub.

The day could not have been more perfect. From the very beginning, when we planned this trip, we decided we would only go to the parade if it was decent weather and it was not raining. Not only was the weather decent, it was perfect! We dressed warm enough so during the coldest part of the morning we were never uncomfortably cold. The temperature was in the 50s and it was perfectly clear and sunny all day. In addition, we got to do everything we planned to do in the city. We never felt rushed and we just enjoyed being together. I couldn't believe that the day went even better than we planned. There were three main things we wanted to do in the city that day and we got to do all of them and more. It was literally perfect day! I am so very blessed.

Notes about this Post:

1) Why Richard typically cooks a Thanksgiving dinner the Sunday before Thanksgiving is because we typically go to someone's home for Thanksgiving. This gives him an opportunity to cook and it gives us Thanksgiving leftovers. Last year he cooked dinner for us on Thanksgiving because we had church members in the area at our home. But during the three years before that we enjoyed Thanksgiving with the Williams.