-Worth a Thousand Words-

In light of how fabulous this ham was going to be, I went and splurged.  As if the cost of one ham in Hawaii wasn’t splurging enough, I bought two big porkers.  One, you see, might not be enough for as many people as we’d have with our families combined.

I almost felt bad – This ham would be so yummy, their poor turkey would probably sit almost untouched.  Who wants turkey when there’s ham?

No matter.  With two huge hammies, we’d still have leftovers.

So!

Two nights before Thanksgiving I reverently cracked the seal on that big jar of apple-goo & sliced into our hammies.  I drizzled it everywhere and made sure the sticky sweet apple glaze would be infusing its magic over, around, under, and through.  I even prayed little prayers of gratitude for the little piggy lives spent on this meal.  Your lives were not spent in vain, dear pigsters!

I can’t believe I am publicly owning up to all this emotional investment.  It’s just a meal, for crying out loud!

Double-wrapped in tin foil, it waited all night and all the next day for its trip over to those Boy Scouts the evening before Thanksgiving.

I should have taken a picture but I didn’t.  It was a giant front yard (by Hawaiian standards) with a giant hole in the ground (by my standards) with a giant pile of dirt next to it (by my sons’ standards).  Dozens of turkeys and hams in their tin foil shininess covered folding tables and were spreading out all over the yard.  What a sight!

I hoped my double-wrapping would be enough.  Some of the other hams/turkeys looked like they were ready to get tossed around in a cement mixer or something.  What if my apple-coated-hammies spilled their juicy apple guts all over everything?  Ack, that would be tragic.  Perish the thought.

Pushing fears aside, I drove home thinking,

Ho, this is gonna be tooo goood!

And then I went to bed, dreaming of the smell from our apple canning adventure.

(the picture that wouldn't load properly in part 1)

And the train derails…

When the happy day dawned, Creativity had herself a nice high fever and a serious case of the blahs. Ack!  Whadduwedo?  Get together anyway?  Go in shifts?  Go together but keep her away from everyone?

THEN she went and threw up.

<grumpy eyebrows>

Are you serious, kid?  We can’t get together with ANYONE now.  Who wants the flu to kickoff their holiday season?  Ooh! Ooh! Sign me up for that!

Great.

So much for our dearly cherished plan.  And Emma was making the rolls, too.  She’s a great chef, I bet her rolls are amazing.  What’s Thanksgiving without rolls?!

sigh.

No matter.  We still have ham, right?  And each other, of course.  It can still be a great day.

John was sent then, around 10am to pick up the glorious finished product.  He donned his junkiest shirt and I wondered why — Then he came home with sticky soot all over it and I remembered once again how he is so much smarter than the other parent here.

I remember thinking, as he walked in with 25 pounds of tin-foil-covered ham, “Where’s the delicious smell I’m expecting?  That’s odd.”

But I still hopped and skipped and danced my way over there to peel open that tin foil.  That apple-cinnamony ham smell must be in there somewhere.

Happy Thanksgiving, Smithies!…

And then we saw this:

Doesn't that just make you want to cry?

I don’t think I really need to add any commentary.

(Warning to vegetarians of the world — the picture you are about to see is not very pretty.)

Alright.  I think I *will* add a part 5.  A sort of “in conclusion…” 

But there you have it.  :/