GTKY: Thanksgiving

nerdymama15 · November 2015

Alright ya'll
I'm wondering if food varies from state to state or region to region.

What will you be having for Thanksgiving?

Any family traditions that you do every year?

What will you be having for Thanksgiving?
This year we are ordering from Cracker Barrel unfortunately, but traditionally in the past we have had turkey, dressing, gravy, potatoes, green beans, sweet potato casserole, pickles, cranberry sauce, cranberry salad, rolls, corn, pumpkin pie, and sweet potato pie.
Edit: forgot to add that this year hubby and I ordered a deep fried turkey from Bojangles for us to make sandwiches out of that weekend

Any family traditions that you do every year?
Eat until we are stuffed!
Ramsack the newspaper for the Black Friday ads and make our Christmas lists.
When we were kids we'd watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I hope to get our upcoming LO started with that when he or she is old enough.

mhc13 · November 2015

I'm hosting this year and can't wait to stuff my face! I also look forward to the Black Friday ads even though I refuse to go to the actual stores. I get what I can online.

Turkey
Ham
Spinach Artichoke Dip & Crackers
Shrimp Salad
Mashed Potatoes
Stuffing
Greenbean Casserole
Corn
Green Salad
Sweet Potatoes
Cranberry Relish
Apple Pie
Pumpkin Pie
Pecan Pie
Rolls
Wine

dsmith211 · November 2015

What will you be having for Thanksgiving? We're pescetarians (fish/seafood) so our main dish obviously is always something with fish. Then we eat all the stereotypical sides - stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, etc.

Any family traditions that you do every year? On thanksgiving day we always go to other people's houses. Then the next day we always make our own thanksgiving dinner at home, but not necessarily with thanksgiving foods. Just lots of food we really like but don't have very often. Also on thanksgiving all the 'kids' of the family bring a dish of whatever they would like. So we always try to outdo each other with our newest recipes.

sarawifenow · November 2015

We typically have a very traditional (at least for CO) Thanksgiving. It includes roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, roasted brussel sprouts, rolls, and pumpkin pie.

H is from Iowa where they always have the above minus the brussel sprouts and green beans and instead have corn casserole and hashbrown casserole.

One of our family traditions is we all go around the table and take turns saying what we are thankful for. I love it.

yogahh · November 2015

We are going to the hubbys parents for Thanksgiving. There will be turkey, lumpy potatoes, that gross candied yams thing with the marshmallows, veggies from a bag. And ziti??

I LOVE jellied cranberries but they never have them

Bluejay3030 · November 2015

What will you be having for Thanksgiving?
- deep fried turkey! H is from southern Alabama, where they deep fry everything, so he introduced me to this glorious tradition
-honey baked ham
- sweet potato casserole with marshmallows
- green bean casserole
-cranberry sauce
- broccoli cheese and rice casserole
- corn pudding
- stove top stuffing
-pumpkin pie

Traditions?
-Macy's Thanksgiving day parade on TV
- deep frying the turkey is major
- scouring Amazon for Black Friday lightening deals

This year we will be in Disney for Thanksgiving, but we'll be doing most of these things in a long-standing tradition with our college friends this Saturday. I can't wait!!

wamam027 · November 2015

My grandmother was a stickler on "EVERYTHING" must be homemade. She passed the cooking down to my mom, who was then stoked to find I was super interested in cooking at a young age and they started me on dishes from that point. Now I do the entire dinner with a little prep help from my mom. We have turkey stuffed with homemade stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, ambrosia salad, and homemade pecan and pumpkin pie (bake the pumpkins and scoop them and all). We have so many leftovers each year that our imaginations have to go into overdrive as to what else we could possibly do with all these leftover goodies.

Our traditions for Christmas are way better, however for thanksgiving and Christmas we tend to pull out a puzzle for the whole family to work on. The women cook (minus my sister) while the men go outside and change all our oil and service our vehicles, haha (sister sits around and does her hair and makeup, for whatever reason).

cortney626 · November 2015

We were hoping to go camping Thursday evening for the long weekend. So we made plans to meet at Marie Callendar's with my in laws. They wanted us to host, but we'll be leaving. Last thing I want to do is cook and clean up when we're going out of town a couple hours later. But we might not be leaving until later, so we're going to my aunt's in the afternoon.

We always have turkey, stuffing, creamed corn, green bean casserole, candied yams, and a bunch of other stuff.

No real traditions although I'm sure we're starting the tradition of going camping/dirt bike riding. DH and I both grew up going to the desert/camping/on dirt bikes. This is the first year my daughter has a quad and my hubby got a new bike. Our first purchase as a married couple was a trailer. So we're getting our money's worth and making memories. We're going with my brother, his girlfriend, my BIL, SIL and their kids. We all have a really good time together!

rlworzalla · November 2015

Food choices are pretty typical here in WI, at least for us: Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, corn, pumpkin pie. MIL makes chocolate pumpkin pie, which has always sounded gross to me. We usually also have cherry pie at my family's house.

We used to have a tradition to go through Black Friday ads, but now that the majority of big sales are on Thanksgiving I'm not really into it anymore, and I've been going to those sales for 21 years! I'll still go for some good deals, but the excitement is gone.

Jesse835235 · November 2015

Yum! This post is making me hungry. I'm so excited for the Thanksgiving food. Growing up with divorced parents, I've always had about 2-3 stops to make on Thanksgiving. My brother and I would call it the "Holiday Gauntlet". Anyway, we will be having a pretty standard menu:

Turkey
Meatballs
Seven layer salad
Mashed potatoes & gravy
Green bean casserole
Creamed Corn
Homemade Buns
Cranberry salad
Sweet potato casserole
Pumpkin pie
Apple pie
...and my favorite: Lefse. Lefse is basically a potato flatbreat/Norwegian tortilla. I eat it with just butter, but many people put butter and sugar on it. I usually only have it during the holidays, so it's definitely a treat.

kbrands7 · November 2015

Thanksgiving is at my Mom's house (Mom does Thanksgiving and Easter, I take Christmas, and Nanny/Papap take Christmas Eve).

We usually have turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, salad, honey garlic roasted Brussels sprouts, green bean almondine, rolls, scalloped potatoes, beer bread, pickled eggs, and pumpkin pie. Last year I also made candied nuts for everyone to eat while dinner finished cooking and I'll probably do that again (If we can get our da*n oven fixed!).

We don't shop after dinner but usually play a game. Last year we played Cards Against Humanity; it was hilarious, and terribly awkward.

countrygrl5533 · November 2015

We don't really do Thanksgiving with parents very much anymore and the rest of my family does their own thing. We don't do Thanksgiving with DH's family until later in the weekend as it fits his little brother's wife's schedule better (she has to do multiple dinners with her family due to divorces, etc.).

So for my DH, DD, and me: We do Pies-giving on Thanksgiving Day. The only rule: everything we eat must be in the form of a pie or at the very least, served in a pie plate. Thanksgiving with his family...eh, on the food. Nothing spectacular. Dry turkey, boring potatoes, etc. I bring the stuffing/dressing so we can have real stuff, not Stove Top. I usually bring leftover pumpkin pie and chocolate cream pie too. Sometimes real cranberry sauce too but the only people who will eat it is my DH and I. We are the semi "foodies" of the family. My in-laws...well, I've often left their house from a meal and stopped at McD's.

No real traditions. Christmas is more my thing, especially since Thanksgiving has has kind of fallen apart in my family.

laurenmdrn16 · November 2015

My older sister insists on hosting every year...and DEEP FRYING the turkey!

MH gets a free turkey from work so we pick up the turkey and bring it to her house the day before so she can prep it for the deep fryer. One year she wrapped it in bacon. My arteries are clogging just at the thought of it!

My signature dish is marshmallow topped mashed sweet potatoes with my special spices (and no, I am not telling!)

My younger sister is on green bean casserole patrol with those delicious crunchy fried onions...yum!

My mom makes the BEST homemade stuffing and gravy. Again, family recipes that are top secret!

My older sister and I make whole berry cranberry sauce and...well, really, she just opens a can of the jellied stuff while I make the homemade whole berry and she gets drunk...

My husband is in charge of pies...pumpkin and pecan. Sometimes he makes a chocolate peanut butter pie for my younger sister, but I think he is focusing all his pie making prowess on the most important pies this year.

There is usually LOTS of booze and we all watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade while getting day drunk (of course, not me this year!). Watching football is a fairly new development since I was the only one who actually followed any teams in our all lady family, but now that MH has been joining us for the past 8 years, it is a given that at some point football will be on TV.

My older sister has a small business of ferrets so they usually get in on the action and her fat cat is glued to MH's feet as he carves the turkey, begging for any scraps!

We usually end the night playing board games and since my mom is hilarious when tipsy, we more than burn off all the calories we have ingested by laughing until we are physically in pain.

I can't leave until I have sung at least 5 Christmas carols and then this year we are building a Lego holiday set with Santa's workshop, a sleigh, elves, the works! It really is the kick-off to the holiday season!

Jesse835235 · November 2015

@laurenmdrn16 You are too cute. I love your descriptions! My confession: I've never had deep fried turkey, but man, it sounds good!!

jessiedee13 · November 2015

We actually have a big day on Thanksgiving every year. First we head to DH mom's side, with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn and a veggie tray (and considering I only like the mashed potatoes there...I leave starving). After eating we all tear through the Black Friday ads and plan our attack.
Next we head to my grandmas. She usually makes lamb (they're sheep farmers), turkey, mashed potatoes, homemade gravy, cranberry jello, veggie tray, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole and an endless supply of dessert. Then we just sit around and socialize and go check out the animals on the farm.
For supper we head to DH dad's side and we always have something different. This year it's shredded pork and shredded chicken. The sides depend on whatever everyone else decides to bring so we'll see. I was told to bring "my kids with their cute curls to melt our hearts" so I guess I'm off cooking duty this year lol after dinner we just sit around catching up.
Once we leave there my hubby, sister in law and myself head down to the local walmart for our black friday shopping. We know most of the workers so it's nice to see all of them too. We get greeted with "oh thank god, it's some sane people" or the opposite "you guys are crazy coming out here today...go home before you get hurt" lol its a fun day

mrstmoose · November 2015

What will you be having for Thanksgiving? All of the usual suspects - turkey, ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole (my job this year), and goodness knows what else.

Any family traditions that you do every year? My IL's are still married but my parents are divorced so we switch holidays every year so everyone gets a turn. A fun family tradition my Dad started about 7-8 years ago is instead of having a Thanksgiving meal, we all get together that evening and go see a movie. It has worked out really well because we all know what the plan is and everyone makes it every year.

Now I can't wait for next week!

Jesse835235 · November 2015

@mrstmoose One of my most favorite holidays growing up was when we had a laid back meal... scalloped potatoes and ham, I think... and went to a movie. It wasn't a bunch of running around and stress, just spending quality time with family. I could go for one of those again!

Kurrant · November 2015

I love Thanksgiving and I miss it. NZ doesn't have thanksgiving plus it's spring right now. I can't even tell you how weird hot muggy Christmas is. The last few years we get DHs kids around and I do thanksgiving dinner for them and they mostly love it. I do a stuffed turkey, mashed potatoes, a green bean casserole with home fried onions, pumpkin pie and apple pie along with a few other goodies. I really HATE that marshmallow sweet potato stuff and they wouldn't go for it anyways. No typical traditions since we don't get the parade or "the big game" here...heck it's Wednesday night in the USA when it's thanksgiving day here. Since kids have school and adults work that day we do it on the weekend anyway. I miss real thanksgiving so very much.

doozer1345 · November 2015

What will you be having for Thanksgiving? Well, apparently this is my (married into) BIL's favorite holiday and everyone (me) has to go around what he wants to cook. Which would be fine except that he never makes enough and we run out of food and not everyone gets to eat everything. SIL (DH's sister and BIL's wife) is a bit on the spoiled-can-do-no-wrong side when it comes to DH's parents. That being said.... FIL always does the turkey (thank God). BIL is doing green bean casserole, possibly brussel sprout casserole (if he has time to experiment he says), and stuffing (he doesn't like sweet potatoes so he's not making them). He told me I should make appetizers and desserts (ummm not enough food you're making there buddy. There's at least 20 of us). SO... I am making a yummy sweet potato casserole, deviled eggs (Bacon and Eggs deviled eggs), ham and pickle roll ups, Astor House rolls (who doesn't have rolls?!), sausage and stuffing balls with cranberry sauce, lattice top Bourbon Apple Cider Pie, and Salted Caramel chocolate bread pudding.

Any family traditions that you do every year? We put each others (the adults) names in a hat and draw to do a secret Santa so we don't have to buy something for everyone. The babies are a given. We are going to spoil them anyways. We usually have dinner at DH's grandmothers house bc she lives in DH's jurisdiction so he and the other deputys that don't have a place to go can come grab something to eat.

sjecc09 · November 2015

Jesse835235 said:
...and my favorite: Lefse. Lefse is basically a potato flatbreat/Norwegian tortilla. I eat it with just butter, but many people put butter and sugar on it. I usually only have it during the holidays, so it's definitely a treat.

@Jesse835235 Where are you from?! We do lefse too! It's a holiday treat, and my aunt and grandma spend HOURS making it. SO good with butter and sugar.

We have all of the basic delicious sides (more import at than the turkey, IMO) and my mom makes a blueberry side dish... we always laugh at the name because it sounds disgusting. She refuses to call it anything else, and the recipe is called "Blueberry Congealed Salad." Super appetizing name.

We also run the Turkey Trot 5k as a family, which is usually freezing, to try to make room for the insane amounts of food.

NinnyJean · November 2015

My family goes all out for thanksgiving. We always have a new drink to try and usually start those bright and early, hoping this years drink can easily be made nonalcoholic. Then we'll have a table full of appetizers. For dinner it's the normal; turkey (one roasted and one fried), stuffing, gravy, rolls, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn, carrots, pearler onions, pickles, olives. Then desserts we always have pumpkin cheesecake, pecan pie, and at least two or three other desserts.

For traditions we all go out for a walk afterwards and then at night my mom, sister and I look through the flyers and get ready for shopping the next morning

dsmith211 · November 2015

sjecc09 said:

We also run the Turkey Trot 5k as a family, which is usually freezing, to try to make room for the insane amounts of food.

I forgot about this but I guess this is probably going to be our new family tradition. We have a Turkey Trot 5k literally 5 minutes from our house that I've done alone since it started 2 years ago. This year DH is doing it with me and he was really excited bc they allow strollers now so he said next year we have to do it with the baby. He's never been one for tradition bc he didn't really do anything with his family, but this one makes me excited bc it's the first one he decided would be our new yearly thing.

Jesse835235 · November 2015

@sjecc09 I'm from Bismarck, ND

H0neyC0mb · November 2015

Thanksgiving is an event in our families! All the family and family friends get together! Our parents are family friends, that's how we met. Anyways there's always tons of good food! We have turkey of course, sometimes honey glazed ham, homemade stuffing, a green been dish, steamed and seasoned carrots, grandma's homemade cranberry sauce, my aunt's amazing sweet potatoes with brown sugar, a salad, home canned dill pickles (we have to have a separate jar for my cousin or she'll eat all of them), and a few midwest "salads" (basically whipped cream and fruit).

After we've prayed and eaten our fill, we sit around watch the game while playing card and board games. Somewhere between an hour to a few hours later the pies and icecream are brought out. We have blueberry, cherry, a couple types of apple, pumpkin, sometimes strawberry, and banana cream pie! Up until a few years ago each one of the aunts would bring one pie. Then I made the mistake of bringing one too. Not to toot my own horn to much but I'm fairly skilled at baking. They've now decided that the pies are my thing. It makes me feel pretty happy that they like them so much! Even though it's sightly overwhelming.

Can't wait to see everyone this year! We plan on telling them at the Thanksgiving meal! I've got a shirt that says, "I'm growing a little pumpkin." With an arrow pointing to my belly. Just going to wear it, say nothing, and wait. His aunt's reaction is going to be so fun!

proudparent2b · November 2015

I'm not a fan of traditional Thanksgiving foods- usually I just eat potatoes, bread, cranberry jelly, and a little dessert. This year, I'm saying enough is enough- I'm tired of feeling hungry afterward with no option for multiple days other than more of the same. There's gotta be something on the table that I actually enjoy eating.

I'm thinking of making lasagna or chili and asking for a good, non sweet salad. I'm also asking for normal pastries at breakfast, since I can't eat another bacon grease fried undercooked pancake.

amscape · November 2015

This year is a totally new experience: we are going to Vegas with DHs immediate family & a close friend. I've never been & have no interest in Vegas, but I think it will be fun regardless! The not being able to drink thing definitely will suck though...

Normally we have a typical Thanksgiving dinner with one of our families & my dog gets her "grandparents" to sneak her all the food.

sjecc09 · November 2015

Jesse835235 said:
@sjecc09 I'm from Bismarck, ND

Me too! Crazy!

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