Happy Thanksgiving 2006! Our first Turkey

We usually have Thanksgiving dinner over at a dear friend's place, so we never had any reason to cook our own. Unfortunately, our friend was out of town this year, and we did not receive any other invitations. Or perhaps, we just were not invited and I have yet to realize that nobody cares...LOL.
So at the very very last minute, we decided to make a go at exploring unchartered territory. I thought it would be fun to make our very first turkey. I invited my sister & niece to be our guinea pigs. Since we were going to be only a party of four, Bill got a 12 lb. turkey. We were advised that we needed 15 minutes for every pound to cook it just right. By the time it was three hours prior to dinnertime, the set time to start putting the bird in the oven, we learned that it actually required 4-5 hours. We panicked and started arguing in the kitchen! Oh...oh, this might not have been such a good idea after all. It's a good thing I had not invited anyone else. This would have been so embarrassing! Fortunately, I had earlier defied the printed instructions and decided to thaw the frozen bird, even if it was specified not to. So in spite of the limited time, it eventually came out perfect, and we had a simple but wonderful Thanksgving dinner with all the traditional trimmings. In spite of the fact that I am a newly naturalized citizen of America, my newly naturalized tongue had yet to acquire the taste for the bland white meat of this said fowl. Now can somebody please pass the salt or fish sauce...LOL.
Happy Thanksgiving everybody!