This year's turkey came from the Branigan Turkey Farm in Woodland, CA.  Branigan Turkeys are free range birds that are raised longer than most turkeys to make them more tender.  President Reagan used to order his turkeys from Branigan.  If you can't make it to over to their farm in Woodland, you can go to high end grocery stores to special order them.

This turkey was 22 lbs.  Thank you to Trudy & Eric for preparing it for us.  I made the marinade if that counts for anything.

After about 6 hours or so, the bird came out looking like this.  We were hoping it would be done by 7 PM, but it took much longer.

I don't really know how to carve turkeys yet so I felt the need to "supervise" the carving of the turkey.

Let's eat!  We had quite a spread that night.  Besides turkey, we had stuffing, rice pilaf, corn, roasted garlic red potatos, bread, and appetizers that included shrimp cocktail, puff pastries, veggie platters, cold cuts and cheese, and rum soaked sausage.  We also had some fine desserts too.

We decided to mark the last night of Hanukah also since some of the guests were Jewish.  Here are the 9 traditional candles to light on the final night of Hanukah.

Jeff and Erin are enjoying some of the fine appetizers.

I am trying to decide between getting some wine or sparkling apple cider.  I think I went for some wine.

Jason and Russell are hanging out in my living room along with Mya and Ginny.

Eric is helping himself to some bay shrimp cocktail (just like you get in Vegas) as Maha looks on with Chris and Nick in deep conversation.