Thanksgiving traditions | Pad Patter 11.21

Since 2010, my husband and I have hosted friends for Thanksgiving and I've cooked the feast. I do the traditional turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie, etc. but with variations. For instance, I roast the turkey with breast facing down so the juices can run into the breast. I make gluten free stuffing and rolls and dairy-free desserts because one of my daughters is allergic to wheat and dairy. (I used to only make GF/DF, but in recent years I've felt more capable and make both, although I just buy wheat rolls). My kids are not big fans of pumpkin pie, but I am, so we have a variety of desserts. Besides the pumpkin pie I'm making, my older daughter is making an apple pie and a cheesecake. My younger daughter (the one with the allergies) requested fudge. And my son just wants some of the ice cream we will have with the apple pie. And this year, for the first time, we're having vegetarian friends join us, so I'm trying out some additional dishes for them (as well as using vegetable broth for the stuffing instead of chicken).

I love being home for Thanksgiving, and I love the feast, and I love that we've always found at least one friend to join us. This year we have 6 joining us, which is the record!

I bought more chairs to accommodate them. We needed more chairs anyway, for a while.

Our other tradition is that when we're all seated at the table, before we start dishing up the food, we go around the table taking turns talking about what we're thankful for.

Now I'd better get back to my preparations. I decided this would be a good week to do some home organization before starting to cook the feast. Sort of a birthday present to myself. (My birthday is tomorrow.) Yesterday I cleaned off my desk better than it has looked in probably over a year. My desk is right next to kitchen -- in fact in the "breakfast nook" of the kitchen (though we haven't used it that way since we replaced the flooring and made the nook appear to be part of the family room instead of the kitchen -- so this is relevant to hosting a feast. And I've been reorganizing my cabinets and such. Back to it!

 

We don't celebrate Thanksgiving. We have a sort of religious harvest festival called "Erntedank" without even a fixed date. It is usually celebrated in church, but some cities have processions with music and what not, but they can be anytime in September or October. It seems to be up to each community's own discretion.
There is no public holiday and I personally have never attended any festivities.

 

Growing up we went to my Great Grandma's house. When she passed, my grandfather and his two sisters took turns hosting everyone. So that was fun knowing my great aunts and uncles and cousin-cousins.

When we got married we would alternate with between the sets of parents. Then we moved further away and T-day with friends. The last 10 years or so, we have had Thanksgiving with my husband's cousins on his dad's side of the family. They gather just 2 hours north of us so we go up and back that day. I only have to take some cider and sparkling juices.

Not having to do the cooking is fun and the food is good, but I do miss having leftovers. Some years I have cooked our own turkey the day after just so we could have leftovers. I don't plan to do that this year.

 

We've never really had any set traditions. We had small family dinners growing up, but when my sister and I married, my mom started cooking dinner on Wednesday night. She did that so that we didn't have to be torn between two places on Thanksgiving Day or have to do so much running around. She also assured we had dinner with her as well as in-laws . My current husband is from Indiana, so for several years we traveled the 10 hours to his parents house for Thanksgiving. Since both his parents have passed, we are back to having dinner at mom's on Wednesday and she sends the leftovers home with us. I heat them up on Thursday and have them out if my older kids should happen to stop by. We've also spent a couple of Thanksgivings at the beach...once in 2011 and then again last year. In 2011, we cooked traditional Thanksgiving in the condo. Last year, we went out to an amazing seafood dinner! That's traveling I don't mind so much

 

Surprisingly, we have no Thanksgiving traditions. We get together & eat. That's it.

 

Thanksgiving traditions died out years ago for my mother's family. My aunt took it upon herself to continue the tradition of Thanksgiving after grandma passed away (day after Thanksgiving in 1971). Only problem was she lived in another town and as the grandchildren in the family got older and started having lives of their own, they weren't always able to attend. So the group kept getting smaller and smaller. Then her kids wanted them to come to their houses on the holidays so they fizzled out in the late 80's. For 3 years in the early 90's a cousin had some of the family to his home in Toledo with a side trip to Detroit for the Lions Thanksgiving Day game. Not long after that both my aunt and my mother passed away so the glue that held the family together was gone.

I never know what I will be doing and there have been years where I have spent the day by myself. This year I am spending a part of the day with a 2nd cousin that just lost her mother on the 10th. She and I are pretty much in the same situation these days. No parents still alive, only children, never married nor any children of our own. Whether this starts a new tradition for us, who knows.

 

My family is scattered now. So it's just my husband and daughter and I for Thanksgiving. Our one son who lives fairly close always invites us to join them at his wife's family's home for dinner and games which is nice. But we don't want to intrude on their family so we don't go. We started the tradition of going to one of the movies just out for the holiday season and we go on Thanksgiving morning while our turkey bakes. That has been a really fun tradition for us. It's a big deal to pick the movie out from all the new ones. This year we have chosen Murder on the Orient Express. But due to health issues with some of us not feeling real good right now and our little fur baby being sick the past few days, we may hold off on the movie for a few days.

I made rolls yesterday...I always use my great grandma's recipe...it's to die for! And today I have two pies to make. Which we will most likely start eating soon after they come out of the oven. Why wait until tomorrow, right? And I'm hoping my knees hold out long enough to get this all done today as I took a tumble last Wednesday evening when both of my knees buckled on me at the same time....totally weird feeling to be standing there and all of a sudden there is nothing to hold you up! I'm grateful for no broken bones!! But the knees are not the same anymore. Sigh...such is life at times! But all is good!!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! I'm grateful for your friendship here.

 

I don't think that there is food. In church there usually is food on tables, but not to eat but as a symbol of what to be thankful for (vegetables etc.). For the processions it is not customary to have food stalls in general.

 

We don't have one set thing we do on Thanksgiving. We lived out of state for about 4-5 years total, and during those years family would come up or we'd celebrate with our good friends who also lived away from their family... or both! This is our 5th Thanksgiving back in Georgia and we've done a mix of things.

This year, I am hosting Thanksgiving at my house for my side of the family. I baked a cake and 8 dozen cookies yesterday, along with chocolate covered pretzels. Tomorrow I'll be up early doing green beans, green bean casserole (my favorite!), mashed potatoes, mac-n-cheese (two kinds, to accommodate picky eaters), cornbread, and rolls. My mom is bringing ham, turkey, gravy, and dressing. My youngest sister is baking cupcakes. My other sister is bringing fruits and raw veggies, cheesecake, sweet potato casserole, and something else I can't remember. It should be quite the feast!

 

I don't know what part of Germany you live in, but do you have Oktoberfest? I grew up in Kitchener-Waterloo, Canada. We have the biggest Oktoberfest outside of Germany. The town was originally settled by Germans, and even when I was a kid in the 1980s-1990s, a fair number of my classmates went to "German School" on Saturday morning. (My mom grew up speaking low German at home, but has forgotten all of it, except the swear words.) There is a large parade, and in school they taught us German songs and there was always an Oktoberfest sausage lunch. I remember being very jealous because some of the other girls had dirndls, which I thought were gorgeous. It all happened around Canadian Thanksgiving, in early October.