Turkey Day Reminiscing

[Leetahkin]

I don't know if a thread has been made in the past about this, but figured why not. We have a lot of new posters around, even if the "elders" of the board have talked about this before.

Growing up, every Thanksgiving we would have a huge turkey dinner in the early afternoon, usually about when the football game started. So of course, the table would have to be moved so Dad could see the TV while we ate :)

We always had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, yams, corn, rolls, butternut squash, sweet & dill pickles, black and green olives, cranberry sauce, spiced apple rings, pumpkin pie...I think that's about it.

Towards the end of me living at home, my parents switched to cornish game hens with a delicious orange sauce. Much easier to cook than a big turkey.

I usually enjoyed seeing snow on the ground on Thanksgiving too. Typically that night, or by that weekend, we would put up the Christmas tree too and decorate it.

Nowadays, I may grab a TV dinner of turkey and stuffing, or on the off-chance I'll run to a restaurant for dinner (but not usually). If I don't have any movies DVR'd, I'll run to the store and rent some, snuggling with my cats while watching.

So what are everyone's childhood memories of Thanksgiving, and how do you celebrate nowadays?

My favorite Turkey Day dessert: Pumpkin pie I never understood the Mincemeat pie phenom.

[Edited on 11-18-2005 by Nobody Cares]

[Asha]

My childhood memories of thanksgiving are from TV.
:cry:

[Skeeter]

Originally posted by Nobody Cares
I have never celebrated Thanksgiving as a religious holiday.


There's a reason for this. It's not a religious holiday.

apparently someone was in excellarated history.

[Brattt8525]

Typical family turkey dinner except my mom always made a big ham as well seeing as I didn't like turkey and stuffing as a kid.

When I married the cooking of Thanksgiving was passed to me and my mom stepdad and sister/brother spouses would come to my house and I as my mother did cooked both turkey and ham. The preparations were set in motion and my husband and I would go out to the tree stands to hunt for deer on our property.

Now I have decided to allow my kids to decide what they want for Thanksgiving dinner instead of the traditional dinner. My daughter wants to make a pizza and my son wants me to make the scarey meatloaf monster foot I made and posted a picture of last Halloween.

It is all about being together and enjoying that no matter what we cook. It will feel weird this year not making the whole huge dinner thing though.

[Edited on 11-18-2005 by Brattt8525]

[Leetahkin]

I started to make the thread about Christmas too, but decided to leave Christmas talk alone for a while. So I missed two sentences :shrug:

[Czeska]

Thanksgiving is about food and family, normally. And football, to some.

Since I celebrate 3 harvest holidays, by the time Thanksgiving rolls around, it's pretty much just a nice day to spend with family.

And this year, my daughter will be gone for the whole long weekend, so I could give a crap. Maybe we'll have pizza.

[Latrinsorm]

I don't think we ever went anyplace besides our house for Thanksgiving, but all those interfamily dinners start to bleed together in my head after awhile. Mom would make a big dinner, I would have corn, we all would watch football. Recently the football snacking has become more diverse and robust; I think we added shrimp and sushi last year.

[Jorddyn]

I will not be attending Thanksgiving for the first time this year. My sister-in-law has insisted on having it at her house, with her mother (and boyfriend), sister (and husband), brother (and wife), two half brothers (and girlfriends), and half sister. Of these people, I like one, and can tolerate two others. Additionally, having me and the 10 year old be the only two single ones is not really my idea of fun.

However, the day after Thanksgiving, Mom, Grandma and I will be watching my niece and nephew while decorating Mom's (and Dad's, I suppose) house and drinking Bloody Marys (well, at least I will). I'm excited :)

Jorddyn

[Wezas]

Doing the usual. Lunch at 1pm at the grandparents house (dad's side), with a stop at mom's on the way home for more food.

My mother-in-law and sister-in-law are heading to my brother-in-law's house in North Carolina, so that's one less house we have to hit.

[Terminator X]

I'm pretty sure that my cousin prepares thanksgiving with a molar ratio of sweet potatoes molecules to marshmallow ions being about 1:5. Most of the family always stops by and gets together at my cousin's house up in Suffolk, where we can feast upon marshmallows with sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce with turkey.

It's probably a good thing Thanksgiving happens only once in 365 days... Yah :pig:

- The Termite

[Edited on 11-18-2005 by Terminator X]

[Burnt out Priestess]

When my dad and his brothers were alive,we all would meet up at one relatives house ( dads side of the family ) every year for a big feast and everyone would show up,meaning aunts,uncles,cousins,grandparents ( that were alive) etc ,now that everyone is getting up in age and alot of my uncles are passed away now,we dont do that anymore so now a days we just all go to my moms house for a big dinner feast and her sisters and brothers stop by.

[FinallyDomesticated]

We always celebrated Thanksgiving at my Papaw's house. All the family would drive in with some dish or another. We'd make it fine through dinner (Turkey, dressing, green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce - from the can, Ocean Spray, always - sweet potatoes with mini marshmallows on top, some strange corn pudding stuff that some aunt got a bright idea to make one year and never stop, and pumpkin pie). Then it would start. You see, my family never really liked each other. There would always be some monumental arguement that would start on Thanksgiving and generally last until a month before the next Thanksgiving.

Now, as an adult, I screen my calls and mail when Thanksgiving grows near. If I do get caught and invited back home, I generally become stricken with some disease/illness which prevents me from joining them. That reminds me, I need to think of a good one for this year. Mumps, perhaps. Black plague. Spotted fever. No I think i used that one already.

[Tisket]

My parents made spaghetti for thanksgiving one year. Yeah...spaghetti. They have since moved back to turkey thank god.

[Skirmisher]

Originally posted by Skeeter
There's a reason for this. It's not a religious holiday.

apparently someone was in excellarated history.

Yeesh.

Do we have to always be looking for a slam?

This was started as a nice thread.

Lets try to keep it that way.

[Jayvn]

I'm workin thanksgiving, I should probably go buy a turkey frozen dinner or something.

edited to add - isn't thanksgiving where we celebrate how we jacked land from the native americans and ate their food?

[Edited on 11-19-2005 by Jayvn]

[Sylvan Dreams]

The holidays sucked.

My mom would spend hours preparing a beautiful meal. She and I would eat together and talk. After cleaning up, we'd play Monopoly and she'd always let me buy the Luxury Tax square because my five year old mind was convinced it was a diamond ring, heh. To make a long story short of why it would suck, my dad had a mistress back then and they had children and that familial unit always won against myself and my mom in terms of time spent.

Currently, I buy the frozen pre-cooked turkey from the supermarket because I just can't get the hang of making a turkey properly even though I'm pretty good at cooking. I buy an entire pre-cooked turkey but I make the gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, etc myself.

[Killer Kitten]

Thanksgiving was always good at our house. My mother was a Godawful cook, except for the traditional Turkey and stuffing, which never came out anything but awesome.

Diners would be my mother, me, two sisters, one brother in law, two uncles, one aunt, and generally a few odd cousins or family friends that had no close immediate family. The food was always wonderful and conversation was always filled with laughter. Afterwards I'd wander next door. They had a large family and their place was my second home, I called all the kids cousin and their mother aunt.

This year our family group consists of my mother, sis and brother in law from Texas and me and Mike. So we're eating with our neighbors and my adopted aunt is making the feast. Her four kids each had two of their own and some of them have kids, so it'll be a huge sprawling family affair and major fun. I'm really looking forward to it.

[Skirmisher]

I LOVE thanksgiving.

Love spending three days getting food ready.

Love having WAY more food than can be eaten in one day.

Love having family over and friends that maybe you only see a few times a year.

I love a house FULL(as in 20-30 people) with family and friends talking, remembering and enjoying life and each other.

[Jazuela]

Thanksgiving was all about getting family together. Weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs, and "group" holidays like Thanksgiving and Passover.

Thanksgiving was usually held at my mom's older sister's house. She was like - the queen of hors douerves (blech did I spell that TOO badly?). So we had a good hour's worth of cocktail weenies wrapped in pillsbury crescent roll, mini egg rolls, deviled eggs, cheese and crackers, grandma's chopped liver on mini rye bread slices, etc. etc.

Then we'd have, like, a 90 pound turkey. It seemed that big anyway, took up half the freaking dinner table. ALWAYS had mom's stuffing in it, she was in charge of the stuffing. Then a side of stuffing as well - same stuffing, but not as moist because it was cooked in a big casserole dish. For the older folks, we had that cranberry jelly stuff (I don't think any of us kids would touch it, I still won't). Turkey soup, of course...with matzoh balls in it (also of course). Mashed potatoes, string beans with almonds, asparagus with some kind of sauce (bearnaise maybe?), salad with every possible choice of dressing in their original Ken's bottles lined up neatly on the table... rolls and butter.

Desert - always had an apple pie. No matter what else was available, that was a staple. Cheesecake and pumkin pie too. Ice cream for the kids, sometimes a cake, and if we were lucky dad would make his chocolate mousse thing. We usually had between 12 and 20 people gathered together for this, and when dinner was over the adults would sit there for coffee and us kids would play the piano or amuse ourselves with my aunt's kaleidoscope collection.

I also remember similar thanksgivings at my dad's brother's house, with as many people, but with most of them watching the football game on TV instead of staying at the supper table after we were done eating.

[Daniel]

I haven't celebrated thanksgiving in 5 years unless you count eating at chow halls around the world as celebrating. I don't, but i'm flying home tomorrow and I'll be cooking at my grandmother's house on Saturday and inviting abunch of old friends and family. Hopefully it'll be a good time and my wisdom teeth will decide to unswell.

[4a6c1]

Haha! Turkey day for my family equates somewhat into a psychotic mixup of the negative and positive forces of the universe coming together to remind us that humans do not evolve and that rednecks in Texas - however they might try to move themselves up the food chain - will always be rednecks from Texas. Case in point:

Every year my father trys even harder than the year before to turn the Thanksgiving day of the (typical irish name) family into a formal event. Every year he finds an even GRANDER hotel to host it at. But every year he invites the same texas hill country hillbilly family of fuckups and fanatics. And every year they show up in cutoffs, overalls and stockpiled camo to drink the night away (NO, OF COURSE NOT. NOT ON THE WINE AND CHAMPAGNE WE PURCHASED FOR THE OCCASIONS) on kegs of cheap beer that they brought along in their shiny new pickup trucks that almost certainly cost more than the trailers they live in.

Negative and positives forces of the universe aside, there are some variances that have proved stable in the past:

Will -

I will be hit on by some distant relative. I will most certainly have to reassure hotel staff that "No, they arent really going to start a revolution in the concession hall". I will spend the night threatening relatives who attempt to line dance on a waltzing square. I will threaten the end of funding to relatives who bring firearms.

Will nots -

I will not flirt with some distant relative. I will not join a revolution of napkin-hat confederates in the concession hall. I will not spend the night attempting to line dance on a waltzing square. I will not fire any rifles into the air. I will not chain smoke my charisma into oblivion. I will not allow my accent to magically reappear.

*Will nots are subject to be reversed after I have not ingested a ton of beer from cheap kegs.

**Have nots are subject to be reversed with the prescence of cheap kegs.

Ahem.

Yeehaw and everyone have a good Thanksgiving.

:D

[Latrinsorm]

"Y'all wanna suck on muh lahtsaybur?"

:wow:

[Brattt8525]

I want to come watch that fiasco in the hotel!!!!

[Hips]

Every year, anywhere from 20-30 of my relatives show up for a huge dinner that my mom and two of my aunts prepare.
This year... the boyfriend's parents and brother are coming down from Michigan to join the festivities and I'm a little nervous since it will be te first time they meet... and most likely the only time before our wedding. So I really hope they get along and there aren't any inter-family issues. :(

[Showal]

We're celebrating thanksgiving the weekend of december 3rd. We're going to Pennsylvania to visit cousins. It'll be a good time.

[Kainen]

When I first moved to Tahoe we had a hard time finding a place to live, so we stayed in a hotel for a while. We bought one of those premade dinners with all the trimmings and only had a small microwave to heat up the turkey. We somehow jammed the turkey into the microwave and got it ready to go. Now we have dinner with my sister (we both cook) and no more microwave turkey. :lol:

[Sylvan Dreams]

I forgot to throw in that whoever didn't show up was the main topic of conversation for the evening, heh.

[4a6c1]

Originally posted by Brattt8525
I want to come watch that fiasco in the hotel!!!!

Haha! If you can tolerate the fact that God forgot my family tree when he was sprinkling the world with his pretty little intelligence-filled juice-box, YOUR INVITED!

[Brattt8525]

Originally posted by JihnasSpirit

Originally posted by Brattt8525
I want to come watch that fiasco in the hotel!!!!

Haha! If you can tolerate the fact that God forgot my family tree when he was sprinkling the world with his pretty little intelligence-filled juice-box, YOUR INVITED!

Great, I think bringing a couple of my horses would most asuredly be something your family might enjoy then? Yee Haw

[Leetahkin]

This was cute, decided to put in this thread instead of making a new one. Make sure your volume is up. :)

http://www.msn.americangreetings.com/view.pd?i=382219626&m=1652&rr=y&s

[Caiylania]

Last time I shared Thanksgiving memories ... well up refer to my title:

Want pepper?

[Leetahkin]

:(

I am 1000 miles away from my family, and tonight I think my mom went to the emergency room. She was leaving my Aunt & Uncle's house, slipped on slush going down the steps, flew down about 5 steps and landed flat on her back.

Did I mention I'm 1000 miles away?

I've been calling my sister who lives there, and my brother who is visiting, asking them if they have heard from Mom and Dad (they didn't take their cell phones with them). My brother is going to stop by the emergency room and see if they are there.

This wait is horrible. Now I know how they feel if something happens to me, that they are so far away.

/pacing my apartment

[HarmNone]

Ouch! I can imagine how worried you are, hon. I do hope your mom is okay. Please, keep us posted.

[Leetahkin]

Okay, she's home now. Broke her big toe, badly bruised her shin taking skin off, and bruised her ankle all on her left leg.

I'm glad she's okay, and hope she can recoup in time for London - my parents are going with me there in 3 months.

[HarmNone]

She'll be fine in three months, hon. That's plenty of time to recover from those injuries. I'm sure glad she wasn't hurt any more seriously. :)