At 6.45am this morning, my alarm woke me from such a deep sleep that I thought the Rapture had come. I've never been a morning person, but it was especially hard to put my feet on the floor today. I guess that's what you get after an extra long and very happyThanksgiving weekend.All things considered, I was remarkably well behaved over the holiday. Normally I indulge in every mashed potato I can find, on my plate or somebody else's. I usually enjoy copious amounts of red wine, roasted meats, and lashings of pan-juice gravy too. But this year, I wanted to do something a little different. I've been working really hard since August to lose weight, and through Weight Watchers I'm down about 17 pounds (or 7.7 kilograms). I just knew that Thanksgiving had the delicious potential to derail those efforts, so I took the rather drastic step of having a solo Thanksgiving this year, and I cooked for myself at home. This was not a one-woman pity party either; rather, the necessary efforts of someone who has never won a staring competition with temptation in her life.
I even had every good intention of going to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday morning, but I woke up too late and realised I'd slept through a large portion of it. Not a very disciplined start, was it? I got over that quickly enough, once I had poured some super-strong coffee and watched a few feather-light snowflakes fall outside. Very pretty.
The night before Thanksgiving I'd been out to a rehearsal of the New York City Ballet production of The Nutcracker (one of my holiday favourites). As we were leaving Lincoln Center, the theatre staff gave me a copy of the soundtrack CD and it provided the perfect background noise while I fired up all the kitchen appliances.
Before long, every pot and pan in my tiny apartment was filthy but the tasty, Weight Watchers menu was ready. Because I'm not a turkey fan, I prepared herbed chicken (but without the wine), brussels sprouts (with bacon instead of almonds, obviously), and this truly delicious sweet potato dish that is now my favourite way of preparing them. Dessert was a store-bought vanilla mini cheesecake that I devoured embarassingly quickly.
With my pants stretched to capacity and The Nutcracker score on repeat, I settled down to do some afternoon reading, which turned into extensive napping, which was everything the day was supposed to be.
But Thanksgiving is also about being grateful for the blessings in your life - whether they are edible or not. Foremost in my mind over these past four days, I've been especially thankful for good health - mine, as well as for my friends and family. I gave thanks for hard work - not just in my day job, but also working hard at weight loss, and on this NYC blog that is growing so well each week. And I gave particular thanks for the opportunity to spend another Thanksgiving in this beautiful city with no alarm clocks required.
