Rant #2,024: The Turkey

You would think that I would make this post a week from today, the actual day before Thanksgiving, but I am going to do it today because the holiday's feast is going to be delivered to my house sometime later this week or early next week.

That's right, this year, no one in my family will be cooking the bird from the start, making the side dishes, etc.

I have elected that we are going to have this done for us, and all we are going to have to do is to thaw and heat these things up.

Honestly, I would rather have it the old fashioned way, where either my wife, my sister, or my mother does everything from scratch, but when it was apparent that that situation was not going to present itself this year, I had to take a stand, and I did just that.

That is not to say that we won't have some side dishes freshly made, but the main dish and other dishes are going to be made by others.

We are planning to have Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's house--she insisted she wanted to do it this year--but there is a lot of turmoil in that house right now.

Everyone in the house has been sick off and on for weeks, and my brother in law just came out of out-patient surgery. He is getting stronger every day, but from what I hear, he is still suffering a bit.

My sister has her youngest son coming in from college, and he has also been under the weather, driving home with a fever.

And then we have my sister, who, as you can imagine, is as run down as can be.

But on top of that fact, she is serving in a new, extremely demanding position, and seemingly is working 24 hours a day to make this position right.

So yes, as you can see, there is the burnout factor here, and if she insists on having Thanksgiving at here house, with everything going on, I just decided last Saturday morning that enough was enough.

If we were going to have it at her house, we were going to have it MY way, because it is the only way.

So what I did was to scour the Internet and do my turkey homework, finding the best pre-made Thanksgiving dinner for the buck.

I spent some time doing that, found what I thought was the best package deal, and went with it.

And no, I did not know that the dinner would be delivered by FedEx--that's right, FedEx--sometime late this week, a few days prior to the holiday.

So what we are going to have to do--and I am assuming all of this pre-preparation--we are going to have to keep what is sent to us in the freezer, thaw it early Thanksgiving morning, and either heat it up at my house and bring it over to my sister's house hot or bring the whole thing over to my sister and have her do it.

She lives like 15 minutes away from where I do, so it is really no big deal how we do it.

But that is how it is going to be this year, and if it is good, it is good, if it isn't, well, as they say, "you can only die once."

Circumstances beyond our control are forcing our hand this year, and there is a lot of stuff I am not telling you about why it has to be done this way this year, but you will just have to go with what I told you.

But whatever the case, the main thing is that whatever we eat, and no matter where it came from, we are going to celebrate the holiday with family this year, and that is the best way to do Thanksgiving, whether you are having a banquet or eating your turkey out of a TV dinner tray.

I can almost taste it right now.