A Burnside Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was certainly enjoyable this year. I hope is was for everyone else as well. Allow us to share a few of the great moments we enjoyed this year.

Mat's family made the journey from West Jordan to be at our house. In total, that consists of 8 adults (well, adult age anyway), and 8 kids, plus grandma and grandpa. Mat seems to think he's an aspiring chef. Right now, he has a knack for finding a good recipe and being able to re-create it pretty close to how it looks on TV. This year, it was a brine turkey. Boy was it good. The most moist (just try saying that a few times fast) turkey we've ever eaten. The turkey was slightly overshadowed by the sourdough bread stuffing. WOW!!! can't get enough of that. I hope it freezes ok. Here's a picture of the beautiful 25 lb. bird straight out of the oven.

Now for two great stories: It's been tradition the last few years to open the Christmas season with a little gift from Grandma. Grandma gathered all the kids together and had them all talk about what they were thankful for, and even asked a few of the adults to kick in too. Then moved on to what Christmas is all about, leading the story down the lines of understanding we should celebrate Christ's birth and not think about Santa Clause all the time. She did a fantastic job laying out Mary and Joseph, ending up in a stable. Then, the most comedic moment of the evening. Grandma proceeds to talk about Jesus being born in a manger, with a bed made of hay. But the word hay doesn't quite make it out of her mouth properly. Unfortunately, the following sentence does: "Jesus was born in a manger, with a bed made of Hell". Had the room only been filled with the grand kids she may have gotten away with that. There was not a dry eye in the room, nor a butt in a chair. Every one of us was on the ground laughing and crying. Oh, the moments you share with family... (sorry mom, I'm sure you're mad, but you'll laugh at this with the rest of us in a year or two)

Onto the next story. The gift Grandma handed out was advent calendars. You know, a piece of chocolate behind 25 cardboard doors, so thick no ordinary child can get through on their own. Somehow, every normal 2 year old is born with that instinct that says "Hey, there's chocolate in here somewhere, and I'm supposed to wait 4 more days, then eat one chocolate per day until Christmas!" yeah, right. Here's the picture that just puts it all into perspective...

That's right, according to our nephew Beckham, today is at least Dec. 9. If we had a camera available 10 minutes later, it would have been Christmas eve already.