Cardsfan is going deer hunting from Nov 10-20th, then I am going home to visit my mom on Nov 21-23. Then we are spending a nice quiet 4 day weekend together in which I am preparing: turkey, dressing, garlic mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, etc etc. Yes, it is only for the two of us, and we always have a ton of leftovers, but then again, that is what those vacuum pack sealers are for. After all, just because there are two of us doesn’t mean we don’t like a homemade turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Last year, his brother showed up unannounced which was fine because we had lots of food.
The wife and I, our kids, my mother-in-law and my brother-in-law are all going to be boarding a cruise ship bound for Mexico in the morning. I can only imagine what kind of food and activities will be on tap. I have been on a cruise before, but never for Thanksgiving. I imagine it will be an interesting experience.
We’re driving the two hours southeast to Gunslinger’s family. That’s what we’re doing for Christmas, too. I’d love to go home to my family for a holiday, but that’s a two-day drive or a plane ticket, so I doubt it will happen anytime soon.
We’re going on a 400-mile round trip to have dinner with my wife’s family and one of her grandmothers. I’m not much looking forward to it, because it’ll turn out to be one of three things: dinner MIL cooked, none of which will be hot at the same time as the rest, or cold cuts like it was one year, or waiting an hour and a half to get into Cracker Barrel. I appreciate the togetherness thing, but it’s a big switch for someone who came from a family where the women could cook like you couldn’t believe!
Thanksgiving is at our house this year and everybody’s invited. Seriously, any poor lil servicemen/women stuck at the base, or lonely college kids are always spoiled rotten if they are up to the wall of crazy that is my mom’s family.
I hope to see the two new additions my cousins have made to the family and generally soak up enough family to last me through another year. Plus, there’s the food which I’m still not old enough to cook (thirty is in the rearview mirror, but hands off the gravy, Ashes). There will surely be movie going and then maybe bars/restaurants visited for us young ones. I don’t know why, it’s what we do. Visiting, eating, cleaning, cards, flag football, movies, drinks.
As usual, dinner will be at my brother’s house, but this year there are two major changes:
I get to cook something. My sister-in-law has decided she no longer wants to do it all, so I have volunteered the pie, since I want to try a new sugar-free recipe so I can eat some of it. But since I can’t let that day be the recipe’s maiden voyage, I will be testing it out this week here at home.
My sister-in-law’s family is coming, too, so there will be lots more people to talk to, and maybe I won’t fall asleep on the couch like last year.
Well, my parents are making dinner, which is a change as we used to go out to spiote my mother’s family, but I’m hoping to start a new job soon, so I’m going to volunteer to work turkey day so I can have new years eve off.
I’m flying out Wednesday morning, to my parents’ house. My oldest brother and his wife are coming in for Thanksgiving, so since I can only make it down for one of the two holidays, I figured I’d go down then. I fly back up here Saturday.
I also got a really good ticket deal - less than $200 into Chattanooga, TN, which never happens from anywhere. Ok, so I have to drive to Cleveland to leave, but it’s either Cleveland, Pittsburgh or Akron/Canton - and Cleveland had the lowest price.
My daughter is in college in SanLuis Obispo, and my sister lives there also.
So we are doing T-day there.
This involves some unique logistics, since I am the designated turkey cooker.
I will brine and prep a turkey in LA, pack the turkey on ice, along with the Weber and our stuff and head up to SLO. Cook on Thursday and head home on Friday.
My husband and I had this plan earlier this year, where we were going to tell our respective families that we were going to the other’s for the weekend, then my partner-in-crime and I were going to run off and go camping.
We hit a little bump in that plan when we found out that I’m pregnant and will probably not be up for camping. Plus, once we told his family about it, they claimed us for Thanksgiving :rolleyes: and we’re pretty much stuck. I’ll probably end up cooking, too (it’s either cook and have a good dinner, or leave the work to my MIL, who freaks out halfway through and will end up serving dinner at 11 PM).
Snorkeling in St. Johns, US Virgin Islands!! I’ve been trying (unsuccessfully) to avoid the turkey for years. It’s come down to leaving town! The daughters go to their in-laws now and I truly hate to cook. Maybe we’ll have lobster for Thanksgiving! (If someone else makes it.)
I’m having dinner at my house for my family of four, my mom, my brother, and my mother- and father-in-law. And NinjaChick, if you can find a ride down from Santa Fe, you’re invited, too. We’ll be having turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes and homemade rolls and two or three kinds of pie and succotash (because my mother insists on it) and homemade cranberry sauce (because my mother-in-law makes it) and probably a bunch of other stuff that we would be delighted to send back to college with a starving student. Come to think of it, since my inlaws live south of Santa Fe, if you’re interested, we might be able to finagle a ride for you, too.
We usually have between four and fifteen cousins who come from Colorado and Arizona on Wednesday night and stay until Sunday morning, but this year my mom is recovering from hand surgery and isn’t up to having houseguests. She also gets out of making pies, although she’ll be supervising her granddaughters while they do it for her. And, to top it all off, I just found out that R.E.M. will be playing the Kiva Auditorium (cap. 2300) on the Sunday night after Thanksgiving. This means I’ll be going to the show with six or eight out-of-town guests who are also rabid fans and they’ll be sleeping over Saturday and Sunday night.
Email me if you’re even a little interested in participating in some or all of the festivities - it beats sitting in an empty dorm!
I think Dr. J will be off on Thanksgiving, or at least get out of the hospital early enough for us to have dinner before I go to work. We’ll eat, then I’ll go to work and eat again, while listening to the daytime ICU techs who volunteered to work the evening shift bitch about working so late. (They’re nice folks, but one more whine about how they have to get up and go to work the next morning, and I’m pasting them in the face with a pumpkin pie. They’re the ones who didn’t want to work the daytime shift because it cut into time with their families, so they need to just suck it up.)
Going to Mom’s house, about a 15-minute drive from here. We are trying to get my grandmother to come up from Florida - my grandfather died a couple of months ago, and we’re hoping a change of scenery will do her good. We usually all chip in and cook - Mom does turkey, stuffing, gravy, homemade cranberry sauce, and a couple other things, my sister does her famous Stove-Top Stuffing (the only kind she’ll eat), and I do sweet potatoes, dill and rosemary bread, pie (Derby pie has been voted the hands-down favorite, and I might not be allowed in if I do anything else), and depending on how many other people are coming, maybe another side dish.
We have discovered the route to a stress-free (OK, maybe not stress-free, but reduced-stress) family Thanksgiving is to get Mom plastered first. Luckily, this isn’t difficult - it takes about 2 glasses of wine.
This T’giving will be unique for us. We ALWAYS stay home for holidays - until now. We’ve just acquired a new (used) boat which will be our retirement home and that’s where we plan to spend both T’giving and Christmas. The galley has an oven that does not have a thermostat and I’ve never had to regulate oven temperature manually. Should be interesting. Maybe I’ll try to roast a chicken rather than a turkey. Or maybe we’ll have something simpler - or maybe even go to a restaurant if we’re not out on the water. In any case it will definitely be an adventure.
See, I’m not the designated gravy-maker. I am the self-appointed gravy-maker cause anybody else would just screw it up. My mother, my next-to-oldest brother and I are the only ones I know who can do giblet gravy right. By the way, gravy is not just important, it is essential. Everything else revolves around it. All other food exists to enhance the gravy. Giblet gravy is the true meaning of Thanksgiving. Always remember that people.
And we are sooooo gonna have homemade chocolate mousse this year. I’m practicing making it this weekend.
Ah, phew, my invitation just came through – I’m going over to NJ (about ah hour away) to have dinner with some folks who’ve been friends so long they’re honorary family. (We vacation together every year, go there Xmas Eve, etc.) My BIL’s mother has reached a level of truly grim decrepitude that I’m off the hook on going over there to see her – and my BIL and sister will be swinging by to see the folks I’m eating with after leaving her.
I’ll be making broccoli and cheese – made with Stouffers Welsh Rarebit, it’s quite yummy, and doesn’t overburden my culinary talents.
As another Brit it is not really my holiday so I have offered to be on call for my department so that the everyone else can be with their families. I do however now have 5 different invites for lunch/dinner/dessert/drinks as everyone for the second year running here in Wyoming has taken pity on the single English girl! So depending on how busy work gets I may get paid holiday pay, do nothing and get to eat a lot of great food!
Airman will be home, so we’ll spend Thanksgiving with his family this year. Then, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I get to engineer three basketball games and a football game. I dislike Thanksgiving for personal reasons, so I volunteered to cover the games. I’ve got two books on Soviet history to keep me company.
My mother, my next-to-oldest brother and I are the only ones I know who can do giblet gravy right. By the way, gravy is not just important, it is essential. Everything else revolves around it. All other food exists to enhance the gravy. Giblet gravy is the true meaning of Thanksgiving. Always remember that people.