On this rainy Black Friday morning I’m thinking about what a wonderful Thanksgiving Eugene and I had yesterday with the Fabiero clan and my parents. It was the first year that our families combined forces for the festivities. Uncle Edwin hosted at his new home in Riverside. He shocked everyone with a beautiful table display and assigned seating!
Our meal was potluck style and we had a delicious spread with turkey, ham, macaroni and cheese, potato casserole (my Mom’s specialty!), green bean casserole, sausage and mushroom stuffing (Eugene made), oyster stuffing (Eugene made), salad, bread, sweet potatoes and pies. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it again! We had about 25 people around this table and tons of food. It was like a jigsaw puzzle trying to find a place for everything. And no, we did not pass around the hot dishes – we ended up walking around the table to serve ourselves and then sit down to eat.
We sat down to dinner around six-thirty and my favorite part, beside the meal, was Eugene’s nice prayer. I was thankful to be a part of this large family gathering. I grew up with nice, small, intimate Thanksgiving dinners so the last couple of years have been a big change. I think my parents had a good time – I’m so glad they joined us! The Fabiero family meal is always an enthusiastic, loud event with everyone laughing and enjoying themselves.
The stars of the table – TURKEY and HAM! !
After dinner we spent time relaxing on the couch, playing with the indoor dogs and making fun of the outdoor dogs who were all a little too excited. Charlie, Ellie and Miley – they wanted to eat with us too!
As far as games, the Fabiero tradition is to play Pokeno. All of the generations, young and old joined in on this one. The game is basically like BINGO in that you can have 5 across (Pokeno), diagonal, four corners or four of a kind. The best part about playing at the Fabiero home is that everyone bets each round – there are bets for each of the four winning hands and only when Pokeno is won does the round end. So sometimes the diagonal, or four corner bets add up round to round – it gets really exciting when you see dollar bills in the coin cups! We played $.20 per round. Here is one of my winning hands. The game is really all about luck – and both Mom and I were big winners! I hope you had a wonderful day of food and fun with family. Enjoy the long weekend!
