A Peaceful Thanksgiving

I had decided to spend Thanksgiving at home. In the peace and quiet of my home. It was marvelous. Every year I cook a turkey. This year it looked particularly nice and scrumptious.

Friday evening I headed down to Pioneer Courthouse Square to see the lighting of the tree. This year it is 75 feet tall and is beautiful.

Pre-lighting
with lots of people.

Santa and a few of his helpers to turn the lights on as the thousands of people on the square counted down.

Every year Pink Martini, a local group does a sing-along of holiday songs...Christmas and Hanukkah songs. This year held a special surprise. The Von Trapp Children, great grandchildren of Maria and Captain Von Trapp (the real life Von Trapps) joined us. Their voices were absolutely beautiful. I will hear them in concert, someday.

The lady in the middle, dressed in costume for a play called Ebenezer, has played Maria in a stage version of The Sound of Music.

And, the tree is lit!

And, I was there!

Lots of people are there!

On the way out...

It was a fun evening and a good way to start the Christmas season.

Merry Christmas!

Inside out, Upside down, Backwards & Sideways

My friend, Linda and her family have a Harvest Party every year and theme it differently. Linda has invited me in the past but I was never able to make it. This year I was. And, the theme was inside out, upside down, backwards and sideways. The food theme was something to do with apples. So...I fed two birds with one stone (as my friend, Cindy the bird lover says) and I made "Inside Out Caramel Apples" AND they were yummy. Now, they didn't look like the ones in the picture, but they were just as delicious, I imagine. You see, I can't eat puff pastry, so instead of using puff pastry, I made a gluten free pie crust and used it. It didn't cut into nice strips like the puff pastry would have, but I still had leaves.

Pre-baked.

I made 8 of them. It took me four hours. I made two sets of pie crust (out of a bag from Bob's Red Mill) and homemade caramel sauce from scratch. I forget how long it takes to bake since I hardly ever do it anymore.
Pre-bake and post bake photos.

Doesn't that look amazing?!?! They were SO yummy. And, because it was a backwards themed party dessert came first. As it should anyway. My inside out caramel apples were a hit.

But, I don't have a single picture of the party, where there were soups, dips, appetizers all made from apples. There was a reading of the poem Backward Bill by Shel Silverstein was read and the game Apples to Apples was also played and lots of laughter filled the air.