Our Traditional Thanksgiving Menu… on Bed Rest

Tweet

Pin It

I’ve talked a lot about Thanksgiving in the last three years.

I love Thanksgiving. I love pie and turkey and mashed potatoes and having my whole family together in our home.

I don’t love the mad cleaning we do in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, but I do love the clean house that survives a few weeks afterward.

When my doctor first mentioned staying in bed for the duration of my pregnancy, I thought that sounded like a wonderful plan.

Seriously. How often does an adult woman get told to lie around and rest?

At first, it was okay. I was allowed to be up for an hour at a time. I went in to work a couple of times; I played with Grace several times a day. I picked up toys and did a load of laundry.

The hours when I could be up and moving around passed very quickly, and they made the days tolerable.

Then I was hospitalized for my high blood pressure. And then my obstetrician insisted that I lie down all day, every day. Generously, he permitted me to get up to go to the bathroom.

When it came to actually lying in bed or on the couch all day, every day, it became not nearly so tolerable.

In fact, it is more or less awful.

I know I’m doing what’s best for myself and the new baby. I know there’s a silver lining (a healthy baby). I know it could be worse; I am on bed rest at home and not in the hospital.

I haven’t thrown up in weeks.

It’s still pretty awful. I feel like a horrible parent to the child I have but can’t play with. Everyone around me is picking up my slack. I feel lazy.

Joe has to do the stuff I would normally do, plus the stuff he would normally do.

A lot of things (like cleaning) are simply not getting done.

What does my whining about bed rest have to do with Thanksgiving?

One of the things I like most about Thanksgiving is that Joe and I split the duties. We split the cleaning and the cooking. There are rooms of the house and dishes for the meal that we’re each responsible for.

That’s not going to work this year.

Both of my parents and my sister have tried to talk us in to going out to eat for Thanksgiving. In addition to loathing going out to eat for a holiday meal, I’m not allowed to be up and moving around that long.

If they go out to eat, I’ll be at home alone.

Instead, we pared down our normal Thanksgiving menu to a few of our most favorite and can’t miss menu items. We also assigned my mom and sister to make some things.

The cleaning is still a daunting task, and Joe has been a bit crabby with the weight of the tasks ahead, but we’ll make it work.

Our Revised Traditional Thanksgiving Menu

• Sparkling cider (our favorite brand is Martinelli’s)
• A relish tray with black olives and salad olives (green ones stuffed with pimentos)

• Our spatchcocked turkey
• Roasted Vegetable Stuffing
• Crock Pot Mashed Potatoes with gravy prepared by my mom using the turkey juice (is that called drippings?) and flour
• Candied Sweet Potatoes
• Green Bean Casserole

• The Easiest Cherry Pie Ever
• A purchased cheesecake

It’s still going to be Thanksgiving.

And I am thankful for a lot of things.

Just not for bed rest.

© 2010 – 2012, Feels Like Home Blog™. All rights reserved.

Tagged as: cooking, Holidays, Home, Mashed potato, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving dinner, Turkey, United States

This website uses affiliate links. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.