What do you do when you have 14 people arriving for Thanksgiving lunch in 2 hours but have no electricity to cook that lunch? Be thankful for your kind neighbors who let you borrow their ovens!
Thanksgiving morning, we noticed something wacky going on with the electricity at Anna and Dell's house. Several lights went out at once, another began flickering, and lights were dimming and surging throughout the house. At first we thought it was isolated, but eventually realized it was a much bigger problem. We soon found out that the neighbors on one side were also affected, but no one else on the block. A call to the city, and (quite quickly, I might add) a service man appeared and diagnosed the problem as a line that had been damaged where it was running through the limbs of a hackberry tree. But he couldn't fix it until the tree trimmers came to cut off the offending limbs, so he cut the power to the houses and drove away, estimating it would take about 3 hours to get the trees trimmed and run a new line.
At this point Anna was more than a bit concerned about the impending lunch crowd when: Enter the kindness of neighbors. The neighbors across the street and on the other side were leaving to go elsewhere to celebrate with family and volunteered to leave their homes and kitchens open for us to use. It was quite an elaborate operation of coordination - squash casserole, Melanie's sweet potatoes, dressing and Glenn Jr's famous potatoes in the oven across the street, ham and rolls in the next-door neighbor's oven, turkey in Ruthie's electric roaster! And the cell phone calls and seemingly endless parade of food, people, and potholders in and out of the three houses was comical!
We ended up eating lunch by candlelight about an hour and a half later than scheduled, but all was delicious, fully cooked and gobbled up! It was a lovely reminder to be thankful for all that we have (so much!!!) rather than what we don't have. And in true Murphy's Law fashion, the lights went on as we served dessert!
Hope everyone's holiday was filled with family, friends, love and laughter. Ours sure was!
