thanksgiving 2015

It's never good to step on the scale after Thanksgiving. It's an especially bad idea when you're pregnant. Nothing good can come of it. Just don't. Or don't look. Or live in denial. You have options. 

That's really the only downside to Thanksgiving. The upsides are countless. You get to spend time with your family, discussing everything from manure management plans to how to build life together in churches. Because that's what happens when you've got a pastor and farmers in the family. 

You can also wear princess dresses and help your grandma make the cranberries, but I really only recommend that if you're a 3-4-year-old girl. 

You can peel potatoes because you're the mashed potato queen . . . Ok, so the KitchenAid is the mashed potato queen but somebody has to show that thing who's boss. It also helps to have cute nephews nearby to pick up any scraps you may drop. 

You can eat until you feel like you're about to pass out. Or you can't breathe, which is really just like any other day if you're pregnant. Juicy Alton Brown turkey, lumpless mashed potatoes with sour cream and butter, homemade rolls, sweet potato bread pudding, strawberry pretzel salad . . . 

You can order up a pie flight: gooseberry, raisin cream, caramel apple and pumpkin. Or just eat a piece every hour on the hour through the entire Thanksgiving weekend. 

Or you can try to sample them before the meal even starts and while the girls aren't looking. It must be a guy thing. 

And when it's all over, you can go right back to the beginning: spending time with your family, talking about the things that matter and maybe, just maybe, sneaking a bite of turkey off the bone when nobody's looking before remembering that the scale knows . . . especially when you're pregnant.