First, I'm going to list all off the positive and negative items that came up or were answers to my questions. Then I will go over how I'm going to rectify the negatives. I'll save any new ideas or praise for the positives for the next entry.
The Negatives (or stuff to improve)
- Outdoor temperature control
- Food locations that were not in the kitchen or outside
- Not enough room on the new dessert table
- Not enough mashed potatoes or stuffing
- Better knowledge of when the turkeys were being served
- The outdoor tenting set-up
- The outdoor buffet style food arrangement.
- The open beer bottle selection
- The beer tasting event
The second item I can fix is the amount of mashed potatoes and stuffing I had available. I didn't realize how quickly they had both run out. I'm going to hope that means that they were liked, and not that people were starving. I've decided that I will be making either 15 or 20 lbs of mashed this year. I have not decided quite yet. I think it is going to come down to whether or not if I have to peel all of the potatoes by myself. If I do have to do them by myself then it will probably be 15 lbs.
The third item to fix will be the amount of space on the dessert table. I found a new home for the desserts this past year. It was a bit larger than previous years, but I made several more desserts this time around. To alleviate the space issue I have decided to add a second or third level to the table through the use of multilevel pie stands. I want to be able to present several pies and a trays of cookies to everyone all at once. The dessert table was absolutely packed this past year. I know I am capable of either finding or building a pie/cookie stand that is at least 3 levels high. I think elevating the pies (of which I had 6) will give me enough room to alleviate this problem.
The fourth and last of the easier issues to deal with is the non-kitchen/non-buffet food locations. This only became a problem (and it was only mildly a problem) because of a gaffe on my part. I forgot to inform guests as they were arriving of the 2 other food locations as they arrived. I am also pretty sure I didn't use the invitations as well as I have in previous years to inform everyone of how the house would be set up. I will make a point of informing everyone that there will be some food in each room. I may make a 3D map of the house and post in in the invitation, here on the blog, on Twitter, and on Instagram.
Finally, we come to the most difficult thing to deal with at Thanksgiving 2, the temperature outside. I always knew this would be the hardest part to deal with every year. Since our friend David has been able to provide us with the "jet engine" heater the past 2 years I thought we had the problem solved. It still wasn't a perfect solution. I believe we will need that in addition to something else. I have found some propane patio heaters on Amazon that should help immensely. I have all year to purchase at least one of these. I think with the patio heater combined with David's heater I will have a lot more control over the situation.
There you have it folks. Another successful TH2 in the books. Only a few small issues came up this time, and I believe all of them are fixable. In my head I will now be looking forward to TH2.8. No more looking back on what I could or should have done. Only thoughts on how I can make the next one the best one yet. I want more people, more food, and more enjoyment.
Next time find out what the theme of Thanksgiving 2.8 will be.
