For Ryan’s side of the family, Thanksgiving is a multi-day extravaganza.  Most of those in attendance travel from hither and yon so the celebration begins as soon as the first faction arrives.

Festivities included decorating gingerbread men (because it’s never too early to celebrate Christmas, especially when the cousins won’t be together then)…

and a trip to Kangazoom! for some bounce house fun.

Cooking usually begins Wednesday afternoon and continues alllllllllll night and into the next morning.  The menu has remained essentially unchanged for as long as I can remember, but there were some new additions for 2014.  My favorite was the amazing homemade cinnamon rolls we made, thanks to our brother-in-law’s discovery of an easy recipe on YouTube.

We added a thick layer of homemade cream cheese frosting and took tiny, delicate bites chowed down like starved hyenas.

Thursday and Friday were filled with lots of food, football, and family time.  This is the first year I’ve been able to send my kids outside to play without worrying that they’ll eat bark, wander off into the vineyard, or beg to be pushed on the swing for all eternity.  They wore themselves out sufficiently (and then snuggled up sweetly – for a minute), and I was able to chat and help out with set-up and cleanup.

Some of us even got to sneak away for some wine tasting on Friday.  It was a fun way to cap off another busy Thanksgiving season… even if I took the worst scenery-selfie in the history of the world.  You’ll just have to trust me that we were overlooking a beautiful vineyard 🙂