creamed pearl onions.
Yum, those are good.
At my house, it’s not Thanksgiving without The Purple Stuff. It’s a Danish dish, whose name is long forgotten; shredded purple cabbage cooked with equal amounts of butter, vinegar, and white sugar. Matches beautifully with turkey.
(I could also say it’s not Thanksgiving without other Canadians, but I’m lucky enough to get two Thanksgivings so I’ll shut up.)
Pickles on the olive tray that no one eats. (That is, the pickles no one eats, although technically no one eats the tray, either.) But one year I tried *not *putting the pickles on the tray, and you woulda thought I was sodomizing puppies to hear the uproar!
GingerofTheNorth, we make the same thing, only not for Thanksgiving, and we just call it “Red Cabbage”. Buncha unimaginative Germans! 
Football.
Ok, you totally need to have it with turkey or chicken. I’m not kidding.
Oh, I believe you. I expect it’s similar to the sweet/tart cranberry taste I love with poultry.
Oh, what the heck, I’ll throw it in the crock-pot, it’s not like it’s a lot of work.
And this, m’dear, is why my Thanksgiving dinners are way too huge for anyone’s good! 
L-Tryptophan induced food coma.
Marshmallows on the sweet potatoes. To this day I’ll have people over, or go somewhere, and it’s like they’ve never heard of it. But MotSP is a moral imperative.
Agghhhhh… that’s one of the reasons I took over cooking holiday dinners (along with that jello with carrots in it and the dry stringy turkey and cranberry glop…who decided grandmothers actually know how to cook?) .
And no football. After dinner I’m thinking of watching the Cartoon Channel.
And have to add sweetpotato with marshmallowes. Oh, the horror.
Green bean casserole, my wife’s sage stuffing, of course turkey…
Pie.
Pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie.
Pie?
Yes, please!
Mmmmm…
Pie!
Talking about Death.
Actually, most of my conversations lead to Death and Dead Pool. it’s either that or I talk about ailments. Jesus farking Christ, I just :rolleyes: over the Old People Talk.
After 19 years, it still oooks my husband out.
Deviled eggs, baby!!
Brussels Sprouts. I love the things, and always have. I seem to be in the minority on this, so growing up, it was a special holiday treat for me – well, and one of my brothers also liked them. I continue the tradition to this day – I only make brussels sprouts on Thanksgiving and Christmas and I and my daughter are the only ones who eat them, which is just fine by us!
I have come to find out, though, that my family thinks that it is my homemade cranberry sauce that makes it Thanksgiving. That jellied crap-in-a-can is never brought into our house, instead, I make a delightful whole cranberry sauce that is eaten alongside the turkey and then reheated to be spooned over ice cream, bread and anything else that can be found until it is gone. Whodathunkit?
Principally, pumpkin.
Pumpkin cheesecake.
And birthday presents. My birthday is close to Thanksgiving (and actually falls on Thanksgiving some years), so I always get presents from my family after dinner.
My favorite Thanksgiving movie triple feature:
The Ice Storm
Pieces of April
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Which is a myth by the way. :o
In an Italian household, it ain’t Thanksgiving without:
antipasta and Italian meats and cheeses (Round 1)
escarole soup (Round 2)
lasagna or gnocchi (Round 3)
Round 4:
turkey
ham
roast
beef
white potatoes
sweet potatoes
stuffing
yams
cranberry sauce
etc
Round 5, Dessert:
Italian butter cookies
biscotti
pumpkin pie
blueberry pie
apple pie
ice cream
chocolates
And…AND…mixed nuts and nutcrackers, with a bunch of leftover Brazil nuts no one eats.
For me, its my family’s version of trail mix; peanuts, raisins and m&ms. And of course, all the raisins wind up balle dup in napkins because no one likes raisins - but it wouldn’t be a hoilday without them…
Oh, and the day after Thanksgiving is time for my traditional holiday hangover…