Holidays are always doubly fun when you have in-laws. There’s two Thanksgiving celebrations, and two Christmas gatherings. We juggle, we travel and we eat way too much food in a short amount of time. But that’s the way it is, and the celebrations are always a good time. I’m blessed to have a wonderful and huge clan on Mike’s side of the family tree.

The nice thing about celebrating with the extended in-law family is that I only need to do one dish. For my family, I make the whole spread, and I’m happy to do it. Mostly because they’re so happy to come to my home, eat a good meal and hang out with one another. I love offering them that. Then when it’s all over, I get lots of awesome leftovers to play with. Every year at Thanksgiving, I make an enormous turkey, way more than I have to, and I’m always plotting what gets put together with the excess. This year, even with our 8 people at my house, I made a 20-pound turkey. The remains that my sister-in-law and I pulled off the carcass filled a huge ziploc bag, and left me with visions of turkey wild rice soup, turkey sandwiches and a few bags of meat to go in the freezer for meal time in the months ahead.

And for our next celebration with Mike’s family, all I need to do is bring a pan of roasted root vegetables. That’s a piece of cake. Chop, peel, roast and deliver. It’s almost too easy. That gives me more time to be able to visit with everyone, play with the littlest nieces and hang out with people I love.

Problem is….. I’m still full from yesterday.