I realize that nearly all of you are in the UK, but I wanted to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving anyway! I think it’s my favorite time of the year, mostly from all the childhood memories that it brings back.
My family’s actually not celebrating until Saturday, due to scheduling conflicts, so I have a bit of a break before I have to stuff and roast 2 ducks and a chicken, make candied sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, and pumpkin pie. Thankfully, the others are handling the rest of the menu. And then on Sunday I’ll collapse and not move for several days.
I cannot believe that you have to prepare all that food!! How many of there are you? Two ducks and a chicken?? What on earth does the rest of the menu consist of? I hope lots of others are contributing at least as much as you.
Have a great belated Thanksgiving with your family.
LOL. There’ll probably only be 5 of us. We’ve pared things down a lot in recent years as the family size has shrunk. Normally I just do the biggest turkey I can find, but my daughter surprised me with the ducks this year. They’re rather expensive here, but I thought I’d add the chicken to make sure there’s enough food, because leftovers are Very Important.
I think the only other things we’ll be having are mashed potatoes and a variety of finger foods to nibble on before the meal, then of course we’ll have several fruit pies and a pumpkin roll. And I won’t be doing any of the clean up.
Back in the day, we would have added a second type of stuffing, scalloped potatoes, another sweet potato dish, egg noodles in broth, maybe dumplings, green beans, peas, corn, a cabbage dish, probably a ham, and no fewer than one entire fruit pie per person plus whatever other desserts people wanted to bring. Of course, we never eat it all. Part of the fun is having enough leftovers to not cook for the next day or two! Thanksgiving is not for the weak or dieting.
Note to self: Ssssue needs a Thanksgivingesque birthday party.
A Brit asked me recently if Thanksgiving is really like what they show in movies and, yes. It definitely is. I regret that I can no longer decorate for it. That involved piles of autumn leaves, stacks of gourds, and squat candles in orange and shades of cream and brown. Children would spend the weeks leading up to it making handprint turkeys and Native American headdresses out of construction paper. Every adult would bring multiple side dishes and desserts.
And the best part is that it’s the least commercialized holiday we have. It’s just about getting together with family and friends and having a good time over a meal.
Note to NorasMom: there is no way you’d be happy living in England / the UK. We don’t do Thanksgiving. Plus, all our holidays are massively commercialised.
You have as much food and tradition as we do for our Christmas Day.
The good thing about Thanksgiving is that you don’t have the extra stress of buying presents for family, friends and lots of other people that you feel you should buy for.
Yo have another month to do that.
Black Friday - day of sales has crept over here now.
