Thanksgiving is a week from tomorrow! Are you ready?
Next to Halloween, Thanksgiving is my second favorite holiday. If you haven’t noticed…I like food. Lots and lots of hot, steamy, goodness. I’m talking about dinner, not my husband. hahaha. 🙂 I’m going to go through some of our Thanksgiving traditions.
Growing up, we had turkey. Not turkey and ham. Not ham. We just had turkey. I thought that was normal, until I got married. My Mother-In-Law has turkey and ham. I’m not complaining! Besides the turkey, we would have stuffing. Homemade…from scratch. Nothing from a box. My Mom would tear the bread up the day before, and let it sit in her HUGE green tupperware bowl overnight. She liked the bread to be dried out as much as possible. Then a little mushroom, onions, celery, lots and lots of butter, chicken stock, and a secret family ingredient. YUM!
We can’t forget about the rolls. I’m not going to lie. Mom would purchase her rolls from The Grill. I don’t ever remember my Mom making rolls…or bread for that matter. Details….The Grill’s rolls are pretty damn good. There is no denying that!
HAHA! Let’s get to the good stuff. Red jello with pineapple mixed in the jello, and whipped cream on top. This was always my favorite when I was little.
And of course … the rest of the good stuff. Olives, sweet pickles, dill pickles, carrots, celery, and the most important Miller staple…chips with ranch dip!
How many of you can’t eat turkey without cranberries? Yep. We ALWAYS had to have cranberries.
For our party beverage? My Dad would mix all the juices that were left in the fridge, and usually add ice and sprite to the mix. Most of the time it was grape juice and orange juice. It would make a nice poop brown color if he got it just right. We didn’t ask questions…we just drank the juice. 🙂
The Kids Table. The dreaded kids table. The table you didn’t want to have to sit at…..until you knew your Aunt Ainge was going to sit at the table with you. I don’t think I graduated from the kids table until I was married the second time. That would have made me 27 years old. It’s all good. I made sitting at the kids table cool, just ask the others who were sitting with me. Our kids table never looked like the one I posted. It would have plastic cookie monster plates, and kids cups from King Tut’s tomb. They were old cups, they were shatter-proof cups, they were the cups that kept on cupping. In addition, the silverware at the kids table was about as mixed up as drag queen in a church house. Nothing against drag queens, nothing against church houses. They just don’t mix well together. We had all different sizes of forks, different colored knives, and I don’t know why, but there was ONE spoon everyone always wanted to use. Ahhhhhhh, the joys of sitting at the kiddy table. Those were the good ol’ days.
After dinner, but before dessert we would sit around and watch some football. I could fall asleep so fast if football was on. I wasn’t the only one sleeping through the games. Heeeeeeey!
Dessert at our house didn’t consist of pies. No apple. No cherry. No coconut. Dessert consisted of carrot pudding with either lemon or butterscotch sauce, or pumpkin pie. Two choices. To this day, I cook carrot pudding. It’s my all time favorite, and if it ain’t broke…..DON’T fix it. I love, love, love the stuff!
You actually “cook” it in the Mason jars. I’ve had jars explode while in the boiling water, but over time….I’m going to say that I’ve mastered the carrot pudding. BOO YEAH!
I’ll never forget the year my sister and I were going to cook Thanksgiving dinner at her apartment for our Mom and Dad. Just the four of us. It worked out that the two of us went to her house in Idaho a few days early, then Mom and Dad drove up later. We went shopping, we got all the goods, we were going to kick some turkey ass and take names. Thanksgiving morning rolled around, we were cooking the *snap* out of everything…….except the turkey. Yep…we forgot to put the turkey in the oven. Luckily, before we woke up, my Mom had woke up and put the turkey in the oven to cook. No matter how old you get, or how much you think you got everything under control…you don’t. Your Mom will always be the one to save the day. So, this Thanksgiving, be sure to spend it with the family you have, because you never know if it will be your last!
What are your favorite side dishes to have on Thanksgiving? Share with me some of your traditions!! 🙂
