Family Thanksgiving and Christmas Tree Decorating

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving the kids were out of school and we had talked about doing a family Thanksgiving that night. I needed to make all of Abby's food because this is our first Thanksgiving navigating it as gluten free. I thought that I had told Robb this plan but I may of not communicated it well. Bryce had made stuffing and did a wonderful job. He had looked up the recipe, wrote me a grocery list and prepared it all by himself. It was some of the best stuffing I have ever had. This is his dish to make every year. The girls and I had made chocolate pies, mashed potatoes and green bean casserole. When Robb got home I wanted him to start the ham ASAP so we could eat. He was a bit shocked when he found out that I expected the ham to be done in an hour so we could eat supper. I guess he thought he was just making one that night so Abby could take it with us the next day. He improvised and got the ham cooked super fast. We had a wonderful pre Thanksgiving! I was then able to pack up a plate for Abby to take so that she could have everything she wanted from a Thanksgiving meal to Grammy's the next day. Celiac has been a challenge for sure but I hope as Abby looks back she doesn't feel like she missed out on anything because of her diagnosis. I am in a Facebook group with other parents that have Celiac children and I am shocked by how many of them opt out of the holidays with family because the food thing is too hard. I just hope that Abby is able to overcome that and can see that you might have to bring your own food but time with family and friends is so worth it. I also hope by teaching her to make all these things I am empowering her to be able to deal with this, read ingredients, and make safe food for herself someday.

This is how we roll into Thanksgiving. 2 pies because she couldn't chose chocolate or apple and a cooler full of food.

 We also put up the Christmas Tree and got it decorated between Wednesday and Friday. The girls were really the only ones very interested in helping with the decorating this year. We did the fake tree thing again which makes we a little sad but it is really nice not having a zillion needles to clean up after. 

Our tree turned out beautiful!