A Time To Gather.....

And A Time To Feast.....

I am Sure that Many of you, Dear Readers, will not be surprised to find that the Family is Gathering at Sally May and Chip's house for Thanksgiving dinner. It is something of a Tradition because Sally May loves to cook and their house is large enough to hold everybody comfortably, even though a few of the windows are still needing replacing. (Chip is working on it!) We will not count how many Times the same meal has been brought out and the same folks have gathered because Thanksgiving is an Ageless Tradition. Whoever it was who First decided to give thanks for a good harvest and bountiful meals has long been lost to time. But it is certain that people have been celebrating their Harvests and Giving Thanks for their blessings for as long as people can remember.

 And as you might imagine, the gentlemen of the Family

 have gathered in the living room for drinks and snacks...

(they are Not turning on the TV)

 

 while the Ladies of the Family have rushed to the kitchen

 to help Sally May finish preparing the meal. 

It is tradition, after all!

Arthur is so devoted to Pollyanna 

that he is asking if she needs any help...

She assures him she has things under control.....

So Arthur joins the Guys in the living room.

Chip's Mother, Blanche, has a sore ankle

 so she is excused from the kitchen... 

and is helping the Guys keep

 the conversation interesting. 

Joanna and Sally May are admiring the Turkey

 which has just come out of the oven...

It is Huge and smells delicious!

Helen is arranging the tableware, 

while Pollyanna and Joanna begin to carry in the dishes... 

It is the same menu every year and always has been....

Sally May carries in the Turkey...

Are they forgetting anything...?

 

"I'm hungry" declares Annabelle..... "when can I eat?"

"We're almost ready..." replies Helen.....

"Is it Time to call in the Gentlemen?"

 

They all Gather around the table...

Chip is ready to begin carving the turkey... 

but first he asks his Father to say the Grace...

They all hold hands and repeat the blessing.....

 and then they fill their plates.

Meanwhile in the kitchen, 

the dogs are "guarding" the dessert...

 

"Do you think they would notice one little nibble...?" thinks Oreo.....

 

"You have so much to learn..." sighs Honey.

Well, Dear Readers, I am sure

 you will think you have been here before... 

witnessing this same ritual... 

And probably you are right! 

For the Time to Gather and Give Thanks is upon us...

I hope you all are surrounded by those you Love

 and that your Feast is Bountiful!

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Talking Turkey.....

Gobble Gobble Gobble.........

I Suppose I am allowed to feel a bit surprised, Dear Readers, that we are Already celebrating Thanksgiving, because it is falling earlier in the year than it has the past few years. This is because it is always the fourth Thursday of November whichever week that falls in! And as many of you know, this is when families on this side of the Pond are expected to gather together and "Give Thanks" primarily by eating an enormous Feast! And the centerpiece of this Feast is almost always roasted Turkey with "all the fixings"! Sally May loves to cook and was eager to host the Family Dinner again, and all the rest of the Family were more than willing to let her have her way. She spent all day in the kitchen preparing the traditional dishes.

Meanwhile, over at the Lovely Old Dollhouse, 

Victor and Joanna are wondering if it is time 

to head over to the Shabby Sister House 

where Sally May and Chip live. 

(It is a bit shabby because Chip is a builder 

and it is a fixer-upper that he promises will be fixed up someday!)

Will has been invited to join them 

because he has no family on this side of "the Pond".

Helen and Charles agree that it is time to head over.

They did not want to be too early 

as that would make Sally May feel rushed....

Sally May had said dinner would be at six.

There is not a great deal of room in Sally May and Chip's house.....

So it is very cozy once they have all arrived.

Chip's parents Ernest and Blanche

 have been there since the middle of the afternoon.

They live up the River and drove down for the Feast.

Joanna and Pollyanna head straight to the kitchen 

to see how they can help Sally May.

(She never likes too many helpers in her kitchen....

 the cooking area is quite small! )

But she has everything almost ready!

 

 The enormous turkey has come out of the oven

 and is just "resting"

 while she makes the gravy and cooks the peas....

 

Pollyanna carries the dishes to the Dining Room.... 

they will be eating "buffet style" 

as there are too many guests to fit around the table.

Joanna says "let me take the turkey.... 

that will give you more room in here...."

Annabelle says "I want to help....!"

 "You can help me sort the silverware...." replies Pollyanna.

Joanna set the turkey at the head of the table, 

then decided to count the napkins....

Sally May says " I think that's everything..."

"Shall I call everybody in..." asks Joanna?

Goodness! It is a crowded room!

Chip's Father always leads the song of Blessing....

everybody joins in, 

the familiar words echoing in the room ....

"Praise Him from whom all blessings flow......"

Chip loves the moment when he can begin to carve the turkey.... 

it makes him feel so useful!

Well, Dear Readers, we will leave them here,

 about to fill their plates and their bellies.

I believe they are ready to Gobble up the food 

they have waited so long to enjoy!

And as we stand back, 

I want to say to ALL of you, Dear Readers, 

how Thankful I am that you are Here!

I feel it is such a Gift that there are so many miniaturists 

all around the World who visit and share this mini World with me!

Thank you for your visits!

Thank you for your Wonderful comments!

Thank you sharing your knowledge and love of miniatures!

 

Oh, and don't forget to stick around for the Pie!

Yes! That Pie!

I hope you All can gather with Loved ones

 and enjoy the Feast!

Yes, it's Thanksgiving once Again

and we're Talking Turkey!

(Gobble gobble gobble.......!)

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving Day As many of you are aware, Americans are celebrating their traditional Thanksgiving Day this fourth Thursday of November. It is a time for gathering with friends and family and quite frankly, making pigs of ourselves! We eat and eat and eat some more! And take a break and eat some more! The focus is on food and plenty of it! And so we give thanks for the bounty as people have for ages and ages, by gathering together to FEAST! The menu, while it varies somewhat from one end of the country to the other, has a great deal of consistency. The central feature being the Turkey, a bird native to North America, and a great blesing to the earliest colonists from Europe as it was large and somewhat easy to hunt. Second to the Turkey is the potatoes, also native to the Americas and equally appreciated by the modern world. (Can YOU imagine the world without the potato?) Third in universality would be the Pumpkin pie, and if I am not mistaken, the pumpkin is also an American native vegetable. And the Cranberry is native too, and is made into a lovely jelly sauce for the meat. Corn, yet another native to America, plays its part in many menus, sometimes as the bread for stuffing the Turkey, sometimes served on the ear dripping with butter. It seems as though the greater part of the traditional menu consists of foods that are native to the Americas, which makes sense after all, as the Holiday is considered to be a remembrance of the first feasts of thanksgiving held by the early colonists who survived their first year on these shores.
And because this is a blog about miniature dollhouses, it would stand to reason that I would want to show my miniature friends celebrating this Holiday along with us big people. Yet, when I took inventory of my supplies and ingredients for such a post, I became aware that my dollhouses still had almost NO FOOD AT ALL in their pantries and larders and buttries! THIS was something I was going to have to remedy right away. So I pulled out my sculpey and paints and went to work. You are going to have to be easy on me, dear readers, because I have not made any mini food since I made some salt dough pieces way back in my teen years!

Here below you can see the beginnings of the sculpey food I have made.

I even had to make some dishes as I had no serving pieces!

Most of the foods for the traditional Thanksgiving Feast were native to the American Continent, which means they were unknown to the Medieval Europeans. In the Middle Ages, Europeans had no potatoes, no corn, (maize, not wheat) no pumpkins or squash, no turkeys. If I wanted my Castle dolls to celebrate a "thanksgiving" feast, I had to think about what foods they WOULD have had! Fortunately, I have a wonderful book all about medieval foods and recipes, and it reminded me that just because WE can't imagine a world without potatoes or corn, they had plenty of variety and delicious foods to feast on! Nonetheless, being a beginner with sculpey food, I stuck to the simple very basic foods. The Medieval people ate a great deal of bread and cheese and meat. They had cabbage and onions and turnips and beans, beets, carrotts, lettuce and kale and many other greens. They had apples and pears and berries, grapes, figs, nuts and spices, to name just a few! Plenty of food for a feast!
So I started with a roast goose on a spit (my fire is not quite set up to show it BEING roasted, so I show it finished.) Fresh baked bread and a wheel of hard cheese were easy enough to make. The onions and cabbage were a little harder to make look realistic, so I have put them in the back of the picture!

Belle is getting ready to serve the meal.....


A slightly closer shot..... Old Meg is hungry!

Henry has been out hunting and brought home a pair of pheasants....... it is his contribution to the meal.... but Belle will serve them another day since the goose is cooked already!

Meanwhile, in the Modern doll world, Pollyanna has been out hunting too, and she came home with a basket full of vegetables from the market!

(These were not made by me - they are plastic and none of them were Medieval foods!)

Pollyanna also had to run to the nearest Flea Market to pick up some dishes to use because she really has no china to serve a feast!

(All but the platter at the back are my sculpey creations... please don't laugh! Or rather, go ahead and laugh loud and long! They are very rough, novice examples, and I would never have tried to do "china" except in these dire circumstances!)

Now that Pollyanna has her dishes all chosen, she can get to work on the preparations for the meal! Starting with peeling and chopping all those potatoes and squash.... maybe I shouldn't have made quite so many!

Oh, and I had to dig out the pots and pans for cooking all this food!

Helen is here to help! She is an old pro at the Thanksgiving meal and will make sure Pollyanna does it all just right!

Here is a sneak preview of the pies for dessert! One Pumpkin and one Apple.

Sally May and Skip brought them, so Pollyanna didn't have to bake them herself.

And after HOURS and HOURS of cooking, the food is all ready and laid out on the table for serving.

There is an ENORMOUS roasted Turkey..... I have to get my "scale" adjusted a little bit!


The white things that look like carved icebergs is supposed to be the mashed potatoes...... and the bright orange ones are the butternut squash.......

There is a gravy boat with gravy and a dish with cranberry jelly......

And a dish with green peas dripping in butter....

Someone needs to start carving the Turkey... and call everbody in to dinner!

Here's to Family and Friends and loved ones Far and Near!

(Oh dear, I seem to have forgotten the drinks!

Pretend they are lifting their glasses of wine in toast!)

And I will lift my glass and Give Thanks for all my Family;

far flung though they be, they are close in my heart!

To my Uncle and Aunt and Cousins in the Northwest!

To my Father and Brothers and Nephews in the Southwest!
To my Sister and Niece in the South!
To my Mother and Niece and Great Niece in the East!
To my Cousins and Uncle in the Hills of New England!

And to my Sons, One in the Far North, one at home!

May Bounty and Good Fortune be ours!

And to all my new Blog Friends I raise my glass in toast!

Far flung though you be, in distant corners of the Globe, perhaps never to meet face to face, yet you are become important to me!

Your generosity and creativity inspire me!


I am blessed by your acquaintance!
Thank you for being part of this blog journey!



So please join in the FEAST! Dig in! And remember to save room for some pie!

Giving Thanks