Thanks for the Thanksgiving wishes, IrreverentTone. Our Thanksgiving dinner was not substantially different from anyone else’s - turkey, stuffing, cranberries, gravy, pumpkin pie, etc. Yum. I love turkey and cranberries. We had an absolutely beautiful day today - warm, sunny, just gorgeous.
Your purple stuff recipe sounds a bit like the German red cabbage pickles, Ginger. Please, do post a recipe - I love cabbage dishes.
Next stop - HALLOWE’EN!!! 
<---- pretend he’s an orange jack o’lantern.
Americans give themselves two whole days for Thanksgiving - the Thursday and Friday. Which is all well and good. Oddly, however, they only give themselves one day for Christmas. No Boxing Day or After Christmas Sit Around Day or anything.
My grandfather used to make that all the time, but since we’d only have one bite, there was enough for the whole block.
For us: turkey, stuffing, cranberry orange sauce, gravy, mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes (mixed together), veggies, pumpkin chiffon pie, Key lime pie, cranberry and homemade strawberry wines. Walked in the fields around Mum’s house afterwards, then played games till it was time for supper and hot turkey sandwiches on homemade bread.
Ginger, try raisins in your Purple Stuff. The red cabbage recipe we use includes them and it’s good.
Yeah, I don’t really get that, either. How do you recover from Christmas without a Sit Around The House All Day Eating Turkey Sandwiches or Go To The Mall With Every Other Person in Your Town Day?
I mentioned some of my scrambling in this thread - my first attempt at cooking turkey left no-one with food poisoning, so I count that a complete success.
The parents were out of town, so I made dinner for me, my brother, and two of our friends, who otherwise wouldn’t have had anything near as fancy. It took me 4 or 5 hours of cooking time for about the same in fun when everyone came over. A good time all around. 
The official Canadian Thanksgiving meal, according to the Department of Canadian Facts (also known as “FAX-CAN”) is:
Jello salad, in as violent a shade of orange as possible. In addition to the usual bits of carrot, celery, parsnips, etc., small plastic figures of NHL heroes of yesteryear may be added;
Roast Beaver with Cod Tongue stuffing, with garnishes of lightly grilled Saskatchewan wheat;
Side dishes: perogies in chutney, poutine chow mein, and haggis with pemmican sprinkles;
The best Saskatoonberry wine, or “Maudite” beer;
Doughnuts.
Anything else is just un-Canadian.
Shred a cabbage. Put it in a big enough pot to hold it. Add 1 cup of butter, 1 cup of white sugar, and 1 cup of white vinegar. Cook it 'til it’s tender. I’ll quite often cook it on med-low for a few hours.
It’s damned good. Now I wish I’d made it - but then, we’ve had our leftover turkey feed of sandwiches today, and the rest is going to soup.
Thank you very much. I’ll definitely try it.
Uh…
…I had shrimp for Thanksgiving dinner…
Must be a Korean thing?!?
no No NO! JELLO salad is un-Canadian! Horrible stuff! Vile!
The only time anyone served me jello salad at Thanksgiving is when I spent one in Seattle with a table full of Canucks and fellow ex-pats, and the lone American in the house tried to foist off that crap.
And Americans do have a go-to-the-mall-with-everyone day. But being backwards, they do it the day after Thanksgiving-- before the stores put everything on sale!
You’re soooo right !!! It should be replaced by Kraft Dinner made with maple syrup Ouch ! stop hitting me !
Ugh - that sounds so awful you could almost submit it to “Steve, Don’t Eat It!”
Is it wrong for me to admit that I actually like my mother’s jello salad? It’s lemon jello with canned grapefruit and mandarin oranges, plus rosemary. We did Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant this year, but my mom made jello salad and pumpkin pie anyway because that’s what everyone likes (well, except for my brother, but he’s just a freak ;))
The restaurant meal was really good, and I got a bit of an ego boost when the waitress decided I was too young for wine with dinner - I turn 27 on Saturday! She was very apologetic, and we shared the experience of being carded then having the person laugh when they see how old we actually are.