I couldn’t be happier that my mom prefers that everybody stays out of the kitchen while she makes Thanksgiving dinner. That way the rest of us can laze around in our pajamas while she whips up a feast- we would just get in the way, after all. The one exception is the turkey, which my dad is in charge of.

My mom still keeps a hand in this however, and around 1 p.m. in the afternoon, a debate erupted over the proper way to tell when a turkey is finished cooking. My dad prefers to trust the pop up button, while my mom favors the conventional wisdom to cook the turkey 20 minutes per pound. After several minutes of heated discussion-in which my dad evoked the name of Julia Child more than once, my mom won (surprise, surprise) and the bird went back in the oven.

Despite this slight glitch in Thanksgiving tranquility, the meal was as delicious and coma-inducing as ever. For some reason it was absolutely necessary to cook about 10 times the food the six of us (my mom, my dad, my sister, my grandma, my grandpa, and I) could ever consume. We had the turkey, gravy, corn pudding, green bean casserole, rolls, twice baked potatoes, sweet potatoes, and two kinds of stuffing. My mom wanted to “experiment” with a homemade recipe, but my sister and I were likely to stage a revolt if we didn’t get our Stovetop Stuffing.

A few hours later, after we were able to look at food again without puking, we had coffee and pie. The two homemade pumpkin and cherry pies (that is, homemade by someone at the Dayton Farmers Market) were one of the highlights of the meal for me.

Now that I’m feeling like I shouldn’t have single-handedly eaten enough food to feed a large family, and the copious leftovers are taking up all the space in the fridge, I’m wishing we had just stuck to one kind of stuffing. But Thanksgiving dinner is always fun while it lasts.