Thanksgiving traditions
 

So do ya have any Thanksgiving traditions? Dishes you always make? Places you go every year? I wanna know all about it....what can I say, I'm curious...

My family is a bit insane...

We typically gather in Redding California (none if my family is from Redding CA, they all moved there...on purpose, I told you, they're insane) @ either my Dad's, my brother's, or my sister's home (they are all within walking distance of each other...more proof of their insanity).

This gathering normally includes:

Brother #1, his wife and 6 children (6 kids, are you starting to believe that they're insane)
Brother #2, his wife and 3 children + Brothers childhood friend, his wife and 2 more kids
Sister, her husband and 7 children + 4 or 5 inlaws (yeah you read that right...7 kids....insane)
Myself, my girlfriend, and 2 kids
Mom and Stepdad
Dad and Stepmom, their 3 additional kids, one of their grandkids, 2 additional kids spouses, and one of Stepmoms nephews.
A couple people from their church.

Are ya'll doing the math? We typically have around 50 people.... (dinner for 50? in one house? You must be insane)
The next morning the wimminz get up @ like 3 a.m. to go shopping (this is not an exaggeration, remember they're insane)
The guys take the kids to the movies while the wimminz are shopping (Yeah we're a bit insane as well)
Oh yeah...all of this is accomplished w/o a drop of alcohol being consumed (again....insane)

I wouldn't miss it for the world....next year I'm gonna drag a few extra people to Redding w/ us. I wonder if I could push this to 75 people:thumbsup:

Our tradition is to celebrate thanksgiving in October.

Yeah, after I hit submit, I remembered that Canuckistan celebrated earlier than us yanks. So do ya have any other traditions that you observe?

For years I was stuck with the job of filling celery with cheese. It was kind of a tradition, the 'jobs' we held, and I thought mine was boring. I finally grumbled about it once, and found out my sister coveted my job. We switched, and now make mashed potatoes and a dessert.

We gather at one relative's house early, and make half the dishes there. I almost never make the turkey, unless I am supervised by too many people (there's a story there I'd like to not share :D). We used to switch which side of the family we'd spend it with, my husband's or mine. Lately, we've all been celebrating together at my house or one of our parents' homes.

The one tradition we try to do is the day AFTER Thanksgiving. Every couple of years, we like to have a special dinner at our house for all friends and family that we didn't get to see on Thanksgiving Day. It is kind of a potluck type of meal; everyone brings leftovers. We watch movies, chat, eat. After a day of Christmas shopping, of coarse.

It varies, and I'm sure traditions will continue to change over the next few years.

When the family can get together I prefer that, even if just for Thanksgiving Day, and it is mainly a lazy day with lots of food, entertaining the neices, and playing Risk until the wee hours of the morning.

If it is not spent with family I have only one tradition that will certainly happen. Home-made eggnog. I have a great turkey recipe, but if I end up going to someone's house, I'll definitely bring the fantastic tasty eggnog. Probably an apple pie also.

Lucky, we don't have traditions. We're lucky if we can get 10 people for dinner--that's including us already. I suspect it may be different this year though.

Oh wait, here's a crazy tradition: we don't do turkey. Fried rice and egg rolls all the way!

We always have sweet potato casserole-- the streusel kind, not the marshmallow kind. My brother-in-law and I will giraffe wrestle for it.

Oh, and cheese manicotti right alongside the turkey. MMmmmmmm... manicotti....

Lets see,

My wife and oldest sister get into a pissing contest about some old grudge, my dad bitches about too much food, while my mom tells him to shove it. My younger brothers will get stinking drunk, while 20 or so nieces and nephews beat the crap out of each other.

I actually like my family in small doses.

Dinner is 'normal' stuff - turkey (brined, alton brown's recipe), taters, sweet 'taters, stuffin'. Pie for dessert (at least pumpkin, pecan, and apple).

However, my wife's family (the women-folk, anyway), have a 'black friday' shopping tradition, where the friday after thanksgiving they get up insanely early and hit all the crazy after-thanksgiving sales.

Obviously lots of people do this, but I'd never heard of it until I married this chick. Seems completely insane to me. They wake up at something like 5am to do this. Ah well.

I get up at about 4:30am. I do the stuffing and throw a HUGE bird into the oven. Then I go to the field at about 5:30 and hand chalk lines onto the field for the Terramar Turkey Bowl" which will be 8 straight years this Thanksgiving. A bunch of computer geeks, old guys and the like get together for a couple hours of early morning cheap beers and general craziness. Good times.

When I was a kid, we always had Thanksgiving at my mom's mom's house. There were 18 grandkids and great-grandkids. "Stop running in and out" and "play with the younger kids" were usually yelled a great many times. It was a mad house and I miss it tremendously. After my grandmother passed away we don't all get together anymore. Now a small number of us get together at this or that house. I usually cook a turkey for just my husband and myself. We like the leftovers. ;)

hehe... even though it was over 30 degrees outside this year.

Our tradition: buy real cranberries, and cook them up in a pot to use as sauce for the turkey.

Since we were all getting tired of turkey, it is now a tradition to reserve the turkey meal for Thanksgiving, assigning a prime rib roast to Christmas, and a baked ham for Easter.


edit:

Oh, we have an American ( a transplanted Texan) living on our street, and this year she has invited us all to her place to, get this, deep fry her turkey on United Statian Thanksgiving. Deep Fried Whole Turkey. And I thought the Scots were unique in battering and deep frying Mars bars!