Jamie Oliver does this in a food processor. Takes about 30 seconds.
That was a GREAT show! [/aside]
Rolls are a bit idiosyncratic. The dinner I had yesterday at a family friend’s house didn’t have any sort of bread at all (other than as a component of the stuffing). At my sister’s house on Sunday, there won’t be rolls, but there will be loaves of fresh-baked bread. Some families will insist on rolls, but store-bought are fine. Some will insist on Gramma’s recipe (which will, of course, be different from some other grandma’s recipe). Some (especially in the South) will have biscuits instead of rolls (which, properly, should NOT be sweet).
Turkey, stuffing/dressing (in my region, we call it all “stuffing” even if it’s cooked separately), mashed potatoes, and gravy are all very nearly ubiquitous. Cranberry sauce, that 1970s green bean casserole, and sweet potatoes with marshmallows are not ubiquitous, but still pretty common. You’ll have some sort of vegetable, and probably two or three, though what kind varies considerably. Dessert is usually pie, especially pumpkin pie (which might, depending on the family, actually be sweet potato pie).
Aren’t biscuits made with either? From my research, it’s an argument in the biscuit-making community as to which to use. Like here’s an example.
I’ll have to try making them with shortening/butter next time. The times I’ve made biscuits, it’s always been a butter-based recipe, but I do see my bag of White Lily flour suggests shortening. Alton Brown looks like he splits the difference with half shortening, half butter (which is a combo I use for my snickerdoodle cookies.) Cooks Illustrated uses all butter.
Scones are usually butter, but can also be made with lard or a mix of lard and butter. Lots of different scones recipes out there.
The thing about making the dinner, at least in my family, is that there is expected to be a lot of leftovers. So, sure, there’s a lot of food, but you don’t eat a lot of it. You’ll get two meals out of it on Thanksgiving Day, and then more stuff to carry around later.
So, sure, the rolls do seem like a bit much. But some really like them, and get little of the other starches or reduce the veg. And then there’s stuff left over for later.
We also tend to do that when we eat out, in my experience. For example, instead of cooking the meal this year, we went to a restaurant that was open. And, even normally, it allows you to get both the buffet/salad bar and a main course for the same price as just the buffet. So of course I still have leftovers–the buffet stuff alone is enough for meal, and I can save the main course for later.
Oh, I knew I was missing something: A dinner roll is never called a “bun”. In American English, “bun” means one of two things: It’s either the thing you serve a hamburger or other sandwich on, or it’s a sweet sticky thing like a cinnamon bun or hot cross bun. Both of those can also sometimes be called some sort of roll (like a Kaiser roll or a cinnamon roll), but without any modifier, “roll” means a smaller thing, individual-sized but usually baked close-packed in a pan so they have to be pulled apart, and too small to make a standard sandwich out of (but possibly a small sandwich).
The episode is “Mail Fraud,” which allegedly introduced the word “staycation” to the English language, though I seem to remember it coming earlier.
While y’all are celebrating Turkey Day, I’m in my apartment in Moscow chowing down on roast chicken with tropical salsa and Cuban black beans with rice. Yum! All I need now is a cold beer. :o
I went out to dinner with my daughter for Canadian Thanksgiving back in October. Nowhere near as good as a real home-cooked meal. 
“Chef at Home” Michael Smith* recommends freezing your butter and then grating it into the bowl with the flour before gently mixing the dough. This is supposed to create little pockets of steam inside the biscuits as they bake and the butter melts, making them extra tender and flaky.
*If you’ve lived in Canada, you probably know him; not sure about the US.
Oooh, thank you for the recipe, I will try it at once!
A proper traditional Southern biscuit is made with lard or Crisco. It’s what people traditionally had. Most people were poor and butter was expensive. They were also often served only for special occasions like Sunday dinner. Other days were mostly cornbread* instead.
I don’t have any scone recipes that use anything other than butter and I don’t think I have ever had any that were made with anything else (though of course I wouldn’t be surprised at all if commercially made ones use a less expensive fat).
Of course anyone is free at any time to use whatever they want and name the end product whatever they wish!
*and let’s not even get started on the opinions on how that is made … 
Only if you’re not afraid of the Southern Grandma showing up in the middle of dinner! The knock on the door from that rolling pin can strike terror in the heart of the strongest good ol’ boy.
Ha! 
That what I remember Cooks Illustrated recommending as well in one of their biscuit recipes. Personally, these days I just do the two ingredient biscuits, using equal parts by weight self rising flour and heavy cream.
We definitely have special rolls, made with my late MIL’s recipe (probably her mother’s or grandmother’s), using a special pan that is only used for that and only for holidays.
Yeah, they are bread rolls. Yeah, they are good. Nothing extraordinary about them though, IMHO.
As an aside I laugh at the typical comments about holiday gorging and expanding waistlines. As a healthy non-sedentary adult, the worst that happens from a big holiday meal is 2-3 pounds of temporary water weight gain and then I’ll be back to regular (not to be confused with “standard American”) lifestyle in 24 hours. In fact, today I woke up and worked out and ate my one meal of heaping leftovers and it was great.
Yes, but if Grandma wasn’t invited in the first place, there’s probably deeper issues than how the mealtime bread was made.
Yeah, my family does this for breakfast the morning after. We prefer proper* croissants, though.
*As opposed to the tiny little things that come out of those Pillsbury canisters.
I usually make either cheese puffs (gougeres) or Parker House rolls, and I am asked to make them if I’m not hosting, and there are never any left over. They aren’t the easiest thing to pack up and take somewhere though, because you want them fresh out of the oven for the meal. At least in the case of the Parker House rolls. Gougeres not so much.
She was coming back from the grave with that rolling pin.
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” - William Faulkner