Question of the Day: How Do You “Do” Thanksgiving?
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source: DennisSylvesterHurd
I’m really looking forward to Thanksgiving this year! Last year we started a new tradition of having a low-key (but still traditional) Thanksgiving dinner with my mom, step-dad and little sister at their house, and it was a lot of fun. Of course, last year I ruined all of the pies, so they may decide that they’ll do all the cooking and I can just clean up this time, and I’m not sure how fun that would be!
How do you do Thanksgiving?
Do you have Thanksgiving dinner with the same people every year, or do you rotate between families/friends?
Does the host/hostess do most of the cooking, or do you do it potluck style?
What Thanksgiving traditions do you have? Do you watch the Macy’s parade? Do you play a game of football in the backyard after dinner?
What are you most looking forward to this Thanksgiving?
Looking forward to reading your answers!
We go to our daughter’s house in Neptune Beach, FL. I help with the prep as much as she’ll let me!! But it is nice to have someone else doing most everything that needs to be done. I get to spend time with the grandkids. The day after, she decorates her tree and we help in small ways with that. The main thing is we get so spend time with her and her family.
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When I was a single mom and didn’t have a big family gathering, I didn’t want that much turkey and/or ham for two months straight, so my boys and I would do the “traditional Thanksgiving lasagna.” Now, we have a big meal or not – just try to get together with the Parental Units and/or whichever kid might be in town. ;o)
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we rotate who is hosting between my brother and my parents. If my little borther had a big enough place he would be on the list also, but an 800 sq. ft. appartment just won’t work.
This means we get a rest from the traveling. It’s my turn this year! So I will do the Turkey and then we will all croud into the kitchen and cook together. I wouldn’t have it any other way its so much fun to be chatting and bumping into each other. I am hoping to add a few children into the kitchen also for the first time. they are just old enough to make rolls, chop things, and mash potaotes. We also read a bit from Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford.
Bekki´s last blog ..Over the river and through the woods
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We’re traveling to Texas this year to spend Thanksgiving with two of my daughters and family. It’s really an extended family because my son-in-law’s mother is hosting the dinner, which also includes her new husband’s family. Should be a houseful!
I’m going to try to bring some low-cal dishes because I’m dieting. I’ll be “healthifying” a few of my traditional recipes — reduced-sugar cranberry juice in the molded salad, turkey made with a bread-free rosemary/citrus stuffing and an olive oil rub, sugar-free glazed carrots, homemade whole wheat rolls, etc.
Mihla´s last blog ..Is it ever too late?
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We go to my SIL’s house (a few hours away) and her husband’s family comes over. They have lots of fun family traditions like steaming waffle cones to curl and look like cornacopias. Then they fill with candy and place one on each setting. The kids love it. We’ve started deep frying a turkey and it is so tender and yummy!
While I’m here, I was wondering if you could do a post sometime on inexpensive ways for storage. I want to have items stored together and be more organized, but don’t want to spend $50+ dollars buying containers. Are there re-usable ones or homemade ones you use?
Thanks!
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This will be the very FIRST time I ever have tried to have Thanksgiving at our apartment… so far it is just the 4 of us, and maybe my stepson — if it is our weekend. I would like to invite people who may not have anywhere to celebrate, but am not sure how to go about asking them…
I am looking forward to your posts to help me “keep it movin’” as they say
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I love making a big turkey and having lots of leftovers for a day or two, so I don’t mind doing the cooking. This year I will have Thanksgiving and my Mom will bring the pies. We usually make a lot of food and invite everyone. I may have to put up a table or two, but it always works out.
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Barbara Reply:
November 5th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I also like to have the Parade on, it puts me in the Holiday mood.
Barbara´s last blog ..November
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I’ve been married 13 years and we started doing Thanksgiving this way
about 14 or 15 years ago.
I have older siblings so everyone always had to eat 2 dinners on
Thanksgiving. It’s ridiculous. So my husbands family does Thanksgiving on Thursday – (and each year we either go to his mother’s or fathers they are divorced) so we only have to eat one meal. And then my family celebrates on Saturday. Works out well and I get to eat twice without it being all in one day.
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For my first 38 years, we almost always celebrated Thanksgivng, my favorite holiday, at my Mimi’s (grandma’s) house at noon.. My mom has 3 sisters & they all have 3+ kids each, so it was a house full of kin & cousins.. As we all grew up, married, & had kids of our own, it only got larger & louder..
Now our kids are having kids & my grandma got to know most of the great great grands as we still celebrated the holiday at her houseuntil a few years ago. Of course, we all did the cooking & cleaning once she got into her late 70s & 80s.
I moved away from home 11 years ago & while I went home for Thanksgiving a few times, most of the time we have Thanksgiving dinner at our house now. We have 3 grown kids in the area (one still at “home in Tx.” & one in Az.. The local kids come as well as a couple different friends who always share Thanksgiving dinner with us.
We start the early morning off by playing Alices Restraunt on the stereo as Im getting the birdie ready to go in the oven.. and we usually have shrimp w cocktail sauce for breakfast. YUM! I think I should add Bloody Marys too.
I do 99% of the cooking though one of the girls will come in & help me finish up the last 30 minutes. Its appreciated!
Our tables groan with all our holiday favorites.. We MUST have turkey, ham, stuffing & turkey gravy, corn bread dressing & gibblet gravy (Im from Tx & this is a MUST in our family
green bean casserole, broccoli salad, mashed potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, corn, jellied cranberry sauce, rolls, & 3 or 4 cans of black olives. We also have pecan & pumpkin pies for sure and sometmes rhubarb pie & chocolate dream whip pie too.
I usually wind up making 2 or 3 dishes that I’ve never made before or a few that I just make occationally.. such as corn pudding and corn too..sometimes I’ll make bourbon & pecan sweet potatoes instead of candied sweet potatoes and sometimes I’ll make homemade cranberry sauce in addition to that canned stuff.
Sometimes I add greens, sometimes I dont.
Whatever we eat, we’re all stuffed to the gills before the evening & then hit it all again in the evening before I dole it out in to-go containers & put up the leftovers..
And then I fall over in a heap!
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While growing up, we always went to Oklahoma to spend time with my mother’s family….LOTS of people. Now that we have a family of our own, we host Thanksgiving. My parents, my hubby’s grandparents, hubby, myself and our 4 boys enjoy a fairly traditional meal.
I do MOST of the cooking, though the other women-folk like to add their own tastes. We have appetizers while a lot of the cooking is going on.
We generally have:
Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli and rice casserole, cranberry salad, rolls, egg noodles, green beans, corn, tossed salad, yum yum salad and many many desserts. We stay stuffed for about a week. I LOVE IT!
I also give instructions on things like the dressing and roasting the bird on my blog.
Love the look of your place over here.
~LL~´s last blog ..YOU THINK?
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We usually decide in the fall what we are doing for Thanksgiving. Over the years we have stayed home and spent it at a friend’s house or gone to my in-laws in Mississippi. This year my in-laws are coming to us.
We have already made our menu and are trying to keep it simple and stick to our favorites. Turkey (which my mother-in-law will be in charge of), dressing (Paula Deen’s southern cornbread dressing has become our favorite), gravy, Raspberry Salad, cranberry sauce, green beans, sweet potato souffle, rolls, and deviled eggs. I could add a half dozen other items to the list (like roasted brussel sprouts and squash casserole), but we are really trying to enjoy it without going overboard. We did decide to have a nontraditional dessert, so will be serving chocolate mousse.
Since we are in Atlanta this year, we purchased tickets for the Rockette’s Christmas Spectacular at the Fox for the next day. Who knows maybe this will become our tradition.
Kim @ whatsupbird´s last blog ..Blogs I read…
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Don’t ANYONE take this the wrong way, but we have too much family. Ah ah ah…I told you not to take it wrong….
Here’s the deal: my parents divorced when I was 4, and both remarried (after my dad’s multiple marriages there are 4 of us kids, with 8 years between the last 2). My husband’s mom passed away when we were 6, and his father remarried (he’s therefore now the youngest of 7). With all that comes grandparents & step-grandparents for both of us & each want their “own” family traditions and the others to fall to the side. Compound that with
my daughter, who is my husband’s stepdaughter. She surprised her father & I while we were finishing up high school. He’s a great guy, one of my husband’s & my most cherished friends…but he too has family. Again, don’t get me wrong cause we love ALL of our families. But let’s face it, the distances between each house is too overwhelming for 1, 2, & even 3 days at Christmas time…not to mention the diverse backgrounds which act like more of a wedge than a peace-inducing experience…add to that my 2 sets of parents couldn’t be on opposite sides of a football field without issue, when I graduated. Granted its been 11 years since then, but trust me, the picture’s not any better between them. The geographically “close” family members are scattered somewhere between a 3 hr stretch north to south in our region…which is a long jaunt mileage-wise(we’re in Eastern Washington state).
After 3 years of living a full state away, we came up with our solution: We keep to ourselves for Thanksgiving! We eat only one meal that day. I cook a simple meal while my husband BBQ’s a turkey as we have done for almost 8 years now, only now we stay put after we eat, in our cozy socks, in our own home. Our attitude is, if people want to see us they can stop by or have dinner with us. No one is EXPECTED to be there except us. No one is ever expected to bring anything either. That way we have the opportunity to share what God has given us with others. Afterwards, we put together jig-saw puzzles, listen to holiday music or watch old holiday movies as we put up our Christmas tree & decorations while enjoying pie & cocoa. Our daughter’s dad usually comes by for a visit that day or will borrow us the following day for the big Turkey Chili tradition with his parents. Its a great holiday now that we’ve put our ownership on it. This year, her dad’s even contributed to what will be put on our table by sharing one of our daughter’s favorite recipes she enjoys at his house. Truly, by slowing down, we have more time to reflect & be grateful for our blessings.
Christmas, on the other hand, is still a bit harried, but we try to stop by all our daughter’s grandparents’ homes, as well as her great grandparents’. We divy up the days before Christmas as 1 per branch of family. We used to kill ourselves trying to get to all of my spouse’s & my step grandparents too, but after witnessing some explosive holiday visits, we’ve decided its worth it to have peace around the holidays rather than sacrifice it to some out of control family fist-fight—besides, if I don’t want to see it, then I don’t want my daughter to see it.
What’s cool is our families have come to accept our system, and don’t have the feelings hurt as much now that we’ve done this for a bit.
If you have a mixed family or families, stand up for yourselves & give this a try. Mixed, complicated families are blessings in & of themselves, and this CAN be done without bringing trouble. The Holiday Season is a time for family, but not a time meant for stress & strife. Your own little family & its traditions are just as important to establish as those from which you came. Honor those traditions of family by protecting yours.
Enjoy & Happy Holidays!
LKP´s last blog ..Mark Your Calendars & Dust Off Your Best Bowling Shirt!
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