Char over at Casual Keystrokes blog has a post Moms and Grandmas should love – My Secret to Getting the Kids to Help with Chores. I like this idea so much I’m going to make it a regular this summer when we’ve a house full of grandkids at Grandma’s Summer Camp. Trick is to let the kids take turns being ‘boss’ and picking the rewards. Very, very cool.

One daughter, her annoying (and very loud) boyfriend, one niece and her not-annoying boyfriend, two semi-sons and their wives, one grandson and three old Navy buddies (plus 2 wives). It’s been a busy week here at the lake house for Mama and Papa Elf, who always stretch out Christmas over the entire length of the holidays. That’s a perk we give ourselves after a grueling season at the mall contributing to the Pagan trappings of the consumerist frenzy.

I’ve baked cookies and managed two batches of fudge that ended up as chocolate syrup on ice cream instead. I’ve cooked lots and lots of meals and done more dishes than should be allowed by law. I’ve attempted to lay down the gated community ‘law’ to the annoying boyfriend who apparently believes we’re all deaf because he is, and have so far managed to prevent any real damage to my sister’s nice new retirement home. I did fall down the steps from the loft on my way to the bathroom this morning, thereby breaking my foot.

So now I’m ensconced on the wing chair in front of the fireplace with my foot on a pillow. I’m not cooking, not washing dishes, and not cleaning up after the barbarian hoards. They’re all leaving tomorrow, so hopefully I can get all the Christmas decorations packed and the sheets washed and the kitchen and bathrooms sanitized in time to make it home for dinner! The beautiful log McMansion no worse for wear and tear, myself a bit more battered (and gimpy) than I’d have liked. Pretty much par for the course.

I figured out awhile back that everybody’s family is dysfunctional to a certain extent, some more than others. A family as big as mine has more than its share of off-colored sheep, but I love ‘em all anyway. Did talk to younger daughter who couldn’t make it here for the holidays, and have been participating regularly in her “Virtual Baby Shower.” Our Marine warrant officer son called Christmas Day to tell us he’s transferring to North Carolina in May, which will put two more grandchildren within easy spoiling range!

I hope the holidays have been full of family, friends and fun for all my readers out there, and here’s hoping that 2008 will be a more hopeful year for everyone, all over the country and all over the world. Peace on Earth, good will to everyone regardless of age, sex, color, culture or beliefs!

It’s Thanksgiving week. I’m of course hosting two dozen guests – family and friends – for the day, and nearly a dozen for the whole week. This means the younger generations will be coming here for the feast. Someday I’m hoping one of them will invite me for the feast and I won’t have to cook a thing!

We do share the cost, the cooking duties and the clean-up (I like to make the guys do dishes, but sometimes it’s more efficient to just do them myself). We’ll use paper plates and plastic cups for the actual meal, but there will be lots of silverware, inevitable plates and serving bowls, pots, pans, storage containers, measuring doo-dads, etc., etc. that should preferably be washed as they come empty or used. Washing down work surfaces, serving surfaces and eating surfaces is always a chore I give to the grandkids.

I will be cooking two large turkeys this year (that I know of). One brought from Florida, one from West Virginia. I’ll cook one a day early, slice it up and refrigerate it for seconds and thirds, pick it for doggy Thanksgiving. There will be at least 6 dogs here, and they’re family too. The other I’ll roast so that it comes out of the oven just in time for dinner, let one of the macho guys slice it up.

It’s a sort of pot-luck too, people will be bringing their specialties. I’ll bake whole wheat dinner rolls, the mashed potatoes and yams will be cooked here too. Then there’s the crackberry sauce no holiday meal is complete without. That’s your basic whole fresh cranberry sauce with a bag of frozen blackberries (can mix raspberries, strawberries and blueberries too) mixed it, sweeter than cranberry sauce and very tasty on the ice cream we’ll put on top of our pumpkin pie later.

Oh, yeah. There’s the pies. Have to bake at least 10 pumpkin pies to get through the weekend, as two of my grandchildren will eat nothing but pumpkin pie for breakfast and at least two slices before bed. The leftover turkey and gravy will get glumped in together as turkey “shit on a shingle” to ladle onto open leftover dinner rolls, good for at least two nights’ meals. Basic turkey sandwiches for lunch, and leftover mashed potatoes for potato pancakes at breakfast on Saturday. Yams make excellent pancakes too, for that matter, so long as they aren’t candied. If they’re candied and you’ve leftovers, heat ‘em up and put them on top of the potato pancakes instead of syrup!

There will be macaroni salad, always good for a quick snack. And the hopping john, which is a meal all by itself. That’s collard greens, black eyed peas and rice cooked in vegetable broth, a staple for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s around here. Of course you can’t serve hopping john without cornbread, so I usually bake up a couple of cake pans’ worth of that too. As leftovers just crumble the cornbread into a microwave-proof bowl and ladle the hopping john on top. Hit the Magic Minute button and voila! Lunch!

Once the turkeys have been fairly stripped you’ll want to pop those leftovers – including bones – into a freezer bag. If it’s cold in your area you could store it out on an elevated porch such as I have where animals can’t get to it and it won’t take up room in the fridge where bowls of this and that and the other compete with pies for space. As soon as the crowd thins out, put it all into that big ol’ enameled canning pot and cover with water. Boil it all the way down to broth. You can of course add carrots and celery and herbs and onions and such at this point, rough-chopped. After a couple of hours it’s ready to strain and put into jars. You can can these so they don’t have to be kept frozen or in the fridge, or not. Turkey soup stock is great starter for wintertime soups. Then discard the bones where the dogs can’t get at them. We usually hold them for a dumpster run the day I make the broth, just to make sure. They can kill your dog.

I am a big believer that you can’t have too much food for the feast. Anything that doesn’t get eaten Thanksgiving Day or evening will most certainly get eaten on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It’s the Feast that Keeps On Giving, and that’s just as it should be. That way Mom or Grandma doesn’t have to do more than one day’s worth of hard core kitchen-sitting, everybody eats well, and nobody goes home hungry!