Thanksgiving 2020 in NYC

Hi friends welcome back! I wanted to post about our Thanksgiving so that Jon & I can always look back on this crazy time. I’m sure our future children will ask about it one day, and I’ll be able to use the excuse “If I can stay away from friends and family for over eight months, then you can say home for one night”. In all seriousness, Jon and I made the difficult decision not to travel for Thanksgiving. Nevertheless, we were determined to make the most of our change in plans and have a great Thanksgiving together! Unfortunately I didn’t take a lot of pictures, there wasn’t much to see, but I took pictures of all the food as usual 🙂

The first step in preventing a Thanksgiving disaster was to create a delectable menu. Jon and I eat ground turkey in some fashion almost every day, so turkey was not something we were looking forward to. We racked our brains, but the only thing I could think of was salmon. Luckily my friend Gil recommended a delicious brisket place, Wandering Que, and the conundrum was solved!

Jon and I have been working a lot and had just spent a week and a half on vacation, so a four-day weekend at home didn’t sound quite so bad. On Thanksgiving morning, we slept in until 9:40! That is unheard of over here, usually we wake up on the weekend around 8:30, so our Thanksgiving got off to a later start. We had our coffee and watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. It was very ironic to be in NYC for Thanksgiving and not able to go to the parade. I suppose that is 2020 in a nutshell ha!

Jon’s mom surprised us with this delicious salted caramel and Oreo cheesecake along with some chocolate chip cookies! We had a cookie for breakfast because there are no rules on Thanksgiving.

We were couch potatoes most of the day and watched the Detroit Lions lose as usual… but this buffalo chicken dip made up for it.

We worked out quickly, I rode my Peloton, and Jon opted for the weights. It felt good to not be a couch potato for twenty minutes.

We Facetimed Jon’s family and then started making our Thanksgiving feast. We had our salmon, brisket, and a side of sweet potato fries. Very untraditional, but so delicious! I think this was the first Thanksgiving I wasn’t in a food coma after dinner, must be because my plate wasn’t loaded with carbs.

After dinner we Facetimed my family and then it was time to make dessert! Jon and I made lava cakes from scratch and they were DELICIOUS! We used this recipe and it made six lava cakes. We topped it off with oreo/chips ahoy ice cream, whipped cream, and a caramel drizzle. It was amazing!

We ended the night eating our dessert and watching Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. The day was so different from a traditional Thanksgiving, but we made lemonade from 2020s lemons and had a nice day together. We are so thankful to have each other and this time together, the health of our family and friends, and off the essential workers!  Hopefully next year we will all be able to sit around a giant table with our loved ones and appreciate all that is in front of us even more. I hope you all had a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!