<p>Turkey is Thanksgiving and ham is Christmas. That’s just the way it is. I’m not actually fond of turkey so it’s a good thing my BIL does the honors. No stuffing in ours as my MIL does the stuffing. Thank goodness there are enough of us to warrant two batches because their tradition is oyster stuffing…I just can’t and neither can my kids. Sweet potatoes came from their side of the family as well (which I skip), regular mashers, squash casserole (my specialty), and a few other sides that make the rounds. SIL asked for a waldorf salad this year…looked more like a dessert to me but she seemed tickled to have it. SIL makes Pumpkin pies and I make apple. There are a few traditional things I would do differently, but she’s the hostess and puts a lot of work into it so I’m not about to ask her to alter the menu! Christmas is my domain.</p>
<p>H always had turkey for Thanksgiving, with cream baked potato, sweet potato and stove top stuffing. The stuffing is his specialy, everyone asks for it. It has sausage, apple, and a lot of other stuff. He is not a believer of putting stuffing in the turkey.</p>
<p>Today we are going to a friend’s place for Thanksgiving. The friend said to H, “I am not feeling turkey for Thanksgiving.” Knowing our girls, H quickly talked her into “feeling turkey.”</p>
<p>Now the girls are young adults, they seem to care more about tradition. They chastised me for not sending out family picture holiday cards last year. </p>
<p>H made his potato with heavy cream, and I made apple pies. We are good to go.</p>
<p>Happy Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>oldfort - your DHs stuffing sounds yummy, but then I’m a sucker for sausage. My kids (now young men) remind me if I break from their favorite traditions as well. In a way it’s comforting that we have passed down things that they hold close and meaningful. Happy Thanksgiving to you and everyone else as well. May we enjoy friends, family, and loved ones, make wonderful memories, and overlook the dish that didn’t turn out quite right. :)</p>
<p>“Tradition” is the sweet curse of the holidays, in my opinion. Having raised two kids and grown up in a rather emotional family myself, I have come to realize that we sometimes sabotage the holidays with our expectations and inflexibility. </p>
<p>I remember my sister (as an adult) crying one year when my mom had a migraine and didn’t make the usual apple pie. Raising my own daughters made me realize early on that the more “traditions” that you added to the holiday season, the more stressful it became because you, as the parent, become responsible for making damn sure that each one gets adhered to. Whether it’s a certain type of stuffing or a trip to Santa’s Village.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against tradition. I think, though that we would all benefit from whittling down the things that need to be absolute during the holidays. Choose a few important and meaningful traditions and stick with them. Embrace flexibility on the other stuff. I honestly think there would be less Holiday depression if we could do this.</p>
<p>Having said that, I will share this: Last night my Ds told me that they plan to visit Santa’s Village with their bfs as their first double date!!! WHAT!!! I guess I will have to embrace flexibility this year! Lol.</p>
<p>Good reminder EPTR. My kids did a double take last night when I told then ‘dinner’ was at 1pm, requested by their aunt -the hostess, so her DH could be out of the kitchen and watching the football game by 4pm. Fine by me. The boys repeated it twice “dinner at 1?” Yes, boys and its going to be yummy, and we’ll have leftovers during the game if you’re hungry again. “Okay, cool”. Flexibility is a good thing but requires some coaxing sometimes. :)</p>
<p>It does! I’m having a hard time getting support for an artificial tree in my house. My kids are grown and they will certainly be fine if I overrule their opinions on it but still…I hesitate.</p>
<p>A few years ago, in the next town to ours, a family had a big brawl at their home Thanksgiving Day. The men were sitting in their living room watching football and drinking, while the wife was slaving in the kitchen preparing Thanksgiving dinner. One of the guys yelled out to the wife in kitchen when was dinner going to be ready and what was the hold up. The annoyed wife grabbed the whole turkey out of the oven, walked into the livingroom where the guys were relaxing, and then she threw the whole bird through the plate glass window in the livingroom and out into the front lawn. A big fight broke out, cops arrived, and everyone ended up relaxing Thanksgiving night in the county jail. I don’t think any of them got dessert that Thanksgiving day, but the icing on the cake for them was getting featured on the front page of the local newspaper the next day.</p>
<p>oh my goodness lizard ! Now that’s an unfortunate family gathering
I think my extended family’s Thanksgiving sounds like either a soap or horrible comedy movie…there is a lot of drama including a relative who has a substance abuse problem that everyone wants to cast aside ( caused a lot of problems ) a possibly seriously ill ex-husband with nowhere to go , a son-in law who seems pretty awesome and everyone is excited to meet him, but his mother in -law is racist and he is black …there are a couple of other twists but I don’t know how to put it here in a way that describes it without sounding less sensitive than the other cast members</p>
<p>If I had a plate glass window there might have been turkey on my front lawn today.</p>
<p>My BIL’s sister makes the turkey. She always raises a few for TG. Absolutely delicious and she makes the gravy too. My desserts came out perfect. We only see most of these family members once a year. It’s fun to watch the children grow up.</p>
<p>Our 10 guests have been here since Wednesday night. Six of them are my kids’ cousins, three of whom my kids don’t even remember, it’s been so long since they’ve seen them. The 9 cousins range in age from 14 to 32 (how did that happen??). They all played Risk in our living room for hours after we ate yesterday. At one point, they came in and asked, “When’s dessert?” I pointed to the kitchen which hadn’t been totally cleaned yet and said, “When the dishes are done!” I’m a mean aunt, lol.</p>
<p>I discovered last year that making most of the food the day before makes for a much more relaxing day for me on Thanksgiving. I actually get to enjoy the day instead of peering over my stove at everyone. The only thing I actually cooked the day of was the potatoes ( not a big fan of reheated mashed potatoes ) and the turkey which brined for 24 hours.
I wish I had known this years ago</p>
<p>We’re not big into traditions (but there will ALWAYS be a real Christmas tree at home) so holidays are pretty stress free. We were told early on that if we had any complaints, we were welcome to take over. Few complaints since :D</p>
<p>I’m into tradition, but can also be flexible. We always had a Christmas tree - but one year it was a flagpole with green ribbons, another year a paper cutout behind bookshelves and another year a very scraggly acacia tree. :)</p>
<p>I like the traditional food at Thanksgiving because it makes my life easy, but if I had a migraine, I might send someone else out to take care of pie. (DS2 makes a great one!)</p>
<p>DW makes the turkey, stuffing, cranberries, and gravy, I make the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pies, D1 makes the roasted Brussels sprouts and tofurkey for herself and vegetarian guests, and we and our guests all pitch in on our special holiday salad with leaf lettuce, toasted pecans, dried cranberries, pear slices, goat cheese, and a wheat beer reduction vinaigrette dressing ( adapted from a magazine recipe some years ago). Big production, big payoff. One of our favorite holidays.</p>
<p>Turkey is very important to our Thanksgiving dinner–but it’s not an either/or. The traditional sides are very important, too. Yum!</p>
<p>Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It’s all about food, family, and being together. What could be better than that?!</p>
<p>Okay, this was a Thanksgiving we’ll be talking about for a while. We decided to have Thanksgiving at the house my daughter is renting off campus with 3 roomates, one of whom did not go home and so had dinner with our family. So we start cooking the turkey in the morning and about a half hour into it, the gas oven conks out. The electric starter stopped working, which wasn’t a problem for the stove top which we just lit with a match, but the oven itself was not getting any gas. While I’m trying to think of ways to prepare turkey on top of the stove, my daughter and her roomate ran around to the surrounding neighbors, who are also mostly college students who had gone home for the holiday. Luckily, they were able to get into the house next door, and we used their oven. (They had a key, we didn’t break in.) So Thanksgiving was saved! It was actually lots of fun. And my daughter and her friend did most of the cooking themselves, which was a pleasure to me.</p>
<p>That IS something you’ll be talking about for years! What a great bonding experience. :)</p>
<p>We had a vegetarian Thanksgiving this year, and I loved it. We used to get a free-range, humanely-raised turkey from a local farm, but it’s a bit of a drive and very expensive. Last year, I wanted to forgo it but caught a lot of flak, so I prepared it as usual. This year, since I do nearly all of the planning, shopping, cooking, serving, and cleaning myself, I decided I was going to do whatever I wanted with the meal.</p>
<p>So for an entree, we had a hearty corn and black bean pie. And then we had more traditional sides - pumpkin bisque, salad, cornbread, cranberry chutney (with brie), mashed potatoes, herb-roasted sweet potato wedges, and roasted asparagus. Stuffing was part of the corn and bean pie. A couple people complained, but until they want to step up to the plate and help out, I’m letting those complaints roll right off my back. LOL The meal was delicious and I was very pleased with it.</p>
<p>I cannot do Tofurkey.</p>
<p>lizard - I totally empathize with that poor wife working her butt off and a group of men wanting to know when their food was coming.</p>
<p>mini - Happy to read mention of your Iraqi refugee houseguests. For quite a few years, we’ve had Iraqi refugees be part of our Thanksgiving celebration, and I love them!</p>
<p>It was interesting trying to explain to Ahmed (in no particular order) about: the Detroit Lions, Turkey Holocaust Day, the real story of Thanksgiving (the massacre of the Pequot Indians), oysters, trytophan and why men fall asleep on the couch, why Thanksgiving has been - generally speaking - the worst holiday in the year for gay people, Black Friday, Buy Nothing Day, why stuffing smells better than it tastes, what the Pilgrims ate when they arrived on Plymouth Rock, WalMart workers, where cranberries grow, and roasting chestnuts.</p>
<p>So grading the T-Day Dinner:
- Turkey - B - It was our first pre-brined turkey (Trader Joes). It was moist, which is about the most you can say for turkey.
- Turkey Gravy - B - All right, I made it. Basically, the same old stuff. And there probably wasn’t enough of it.
- Vegetables - C minus - The idea was to make a combined dish of roasted brussel sprouts, yams, and chestnuts. The problem is that
each component requires a different amount of roasting, which was taken into account, but still didn’t work. Shelling the chestnuts was hell, and we mostly got “chestnut powder”. In addition, I underseasoned. - Oysters Ida - A minus - An old recipe from a family friend, it was clearly everybody’s favorite. It would have been an A, except there was no tabasco, and there should have been some crisp flakiness on top. My first time making it.
- Stuffing - B minus - It smelled a lot better in the cooking than it tasted, and the texture wasn’t much different from the oysters. Frankly, had the vegetables turned out okay, it was extraneous.
- Wine: Charles Shaw White Zinfandel - C plus - Two-buck chuck that tastes okay.
- Wine: Sterling Sauvingon Blanc 2011 - A minus - This was a big surprise, and was clearly worth four times what I paid.
- Martinelli’s Apple Mango - B plus - You could taste the mango.
- Pie: Pecan, Apple, Cranberry - B pus - It’s a way to cut down the overwhelming sweetness of regular pecan, and it works! It was a little loose, and needed a couple of pinches of salt to be complete.
- Pumpkin - B plus - I’m not a great fan, but it came out fine. We didn’t have any allspice, so we adapted.
- Detroit Lions - A - They collapsed, and the world was saved!</p>
<p>Oh, and I forgot the cranberry sauce. A B. Very forgettable. We make it with about the half the sugar usually used, and it tastes fine. I probably would have preferred spiced peaches.</p>