Annual Holiday Dinner

Every year since 2000 around this time of year, I invite everyone we know to join us for a meal. When Phil and I married, we changed the format from joining for a meal to open house style. It is for sure one of my favorite days of the year! It's A LOT of work but so fun! This year, we raised a few turkeys with one to be used at our Annual Holiday Dinner. The most stress I had of the entire day involved this:

Not before adding the majority of this stuffing being added to the turkey! Homestead Phil prefers the stuffing to be baked outside of the turkey which is why not all of it went IN to the turkey! :)

After 4 hours and 45 minutes, I decided to peel the foil off of the turkey above only to find that the turkey was PERFECT! It was so moist and delicious! Currently the frame is soaking in boiling water so we can make some broth to be used through the year. After about 50 friends and family members, lots of great food, many hugs, we ended our 6 hour party with only this much stuffing! It was ranked as one of the favorites of the day! That and Becky's spicy corn dip!

We asked as many friends and family to snag a photo with these create signs that Homestead Phil made like he did last year. The previous few years, we had a photo booth section. Although we really enjoy the photo booth photos, the selfie photos are great too! Here's a photo with me, the sign, and my friend Val.

Givi Kitty enjoys a good party just like I do! She hung out most of the time under the tree or in her cat tree. After everyone we left, snagged a few selfies with our lovely Givi to finish off the evening.

And just like that, our 19th Annual Holiday Dinner is complete. We're already talking about next year! Until then, I need to can the broth that's on the stove and freeze some of the turkey that is leftover in the fridge! Amazingly, of the 25+ pound turkey, we only had less than 5 pounds left!