Thanksgiving Traditions?

We’re still trying to figure out what kind of traditions we want to have as a family – what pieces of our families’ traditions we want to keep, adapt, or do away with.

Growing up, Thanksgiving was a huge holiday for my family. I’m talking 3-7 days of the whole family (sometimes over 100 people) getting together at a farm in the middle of nowhere. Both the best (staying up late, sneaking into the kitchen, watching cable tv) and worst (overworked plumbing, strange food, sleeping on the floor) of sleepovers, plus a healthy helping of gathering eggs, milking cows and goats, riding quads, running around in mud, and (for those interested) hunting, baking, cooking, and fixing said overworked plumbing.

For my husband, Thanksgiving was also a family event. But for them, that looked a lot more like a semi-formal or formal sit down dinner than his grandmother had prepared. Pearls and dress clothes and all. 

Thanksgiving with either my family or his family no longer means either of those things, but those are the things we remember, and the things we want to borrow from for our own traditions (and to pass on to futurekid).

I'm big on Thanksgiving - it's actually my favorite holiday, by far - so if you've got special Thanksgiving traditions or recipes, I'd love to hear them.



And yes, this mostly means I'll be talking about traditions and food this week.