This covers only those who consciously celebrate. I wanted to ask who you have spent Thanksgiving dinners with. Happy feasting.
We celebrate Thanksgiving in order to honor my American heritage and because I really like the food. For the past ten years or so we’ve invited my parents (born and raised in the U.S.) over to join us.
A drumstick for the first reply. I must mention that I am not American, and have never been to a Thanksgiving meal.
I moved thousands of miles away from my family a few years ago, so I celebrate thanksgiving with my friends when I am on land in Houston (family lives in Oregon). I used to celebrate it every year with my family though when I lived in Oregon.
Since living in Houston, I have celebrated it with “my special someone” twice, a good friend invited me over to his thanksgiving dinner one year when I had nothing else to do and was single, and I think I did something with another friend another year.
This year I am out working on the boat for Thanksgiving so I will be spending it with my coworkers.
Always with family except on the evenings when I was working and had to miss out on the big dinner. The hospital always provided a free meal that night, and my husband always brought me leftovers, so it wasn’t so bad.
The past couple of years I’ve been stuck going to my brother-in-law’s wife’s parents’ house for dinner, because “it’s so much easier for BIL and SIL to come here since they have kids! This way everyone gets to spend Thanksgiving with their adorable grandbabies!” They’re okay people, but they’re not my family, and I feel weird and out of place there. They pull the “one big happy family for the babies” stuff for other holidays too and I’m getting tired of it. Next year, they won’t have a monopoly on babies, so I suspect things will change.
Lots of good Thanksgiving offerings in Bangkok every year. Some really good spreads. I always go eat with the wife. Once my friend from upcountry happened to be in town and joined us, but otherwise it’s just the two of us.
We had the inclination to invite foreign students to join us, in one particular case, from Africa. The large turkey was picked entirely clean by two very thin, very happy young men, who took all the other left overs back to their apartment, as well.
Not as many such young men in the US today, since many now find going to school in the US ‘too dangerous’; better alternatives have grown, too, and universities are all looking for ways to offset the long term loss of foreign student income. That’s what I’ve heard from some academics…is it true?
Did I miss an announcement?
I love Thanksgiving and Christmas. The more the merrier.
Now that I’m retired, I always visit family. When I was working it was about 50/50 on whether or not I had to work.
I work all the holidays with the exception of Christmas eve and day. That’s the deal I’ve worked out for the last 9 years, seems to work for me. I’ll see more family at Christmas, and get the day after Thanksgiving off.
This is the first year I won’t be celebrating with extended family. We’re having Thanksgiving here at home with my roommate’s family instead.
Always with family. Sometimes with family outside the house (mother, sister & her family) or sometimes now with just the wife & kids. My wife and her family immigrated here and never celebrated the holiday – guess pilgrims & Indians didn’t resonate with them – but I took the meal preparation upon myself the first few years and now she includes some side dishes as well.
There was one year, ages ago, where fate conspired to have all my family out of state/town for the holiday and my son with his mother. When people I worked with found out I was going to spend the day alone, I had so many invitations that I actually wound up splitting three of them and visiting several houses that day for free turkey.
My family is quite unreliable. My brother, for instance, has invited us over five times in the last two years and four of those he canceled at the last minute. So a couple of times it’s just been me and Celtling - which we actually enjoy immensely, all but the last minute turkey thawing. ::rolleyes::
Growing up we were an Army family, and it was normal to have folks over from Dad’s office who had no family close by. That continued into civilian life, and though few people have taken me up on it, I’ve always made an open invitation in my own offices as well.
The more the merrier!!!
When I was young, all Thanksgivings were with my parents, by brother and sister and their families. Later, when I was married, it was always with my wife and children, except when I was deployed, when it was usually in a chow hall on some military base unless I met someone who included me for the day. On one deployment, my buddy and I cooked T-day dinner for everyone on our detachment: maybe 15 guys.
My present wife and I pretty much just celebrate it by ourselves, although this year will include our new neighbors and a friend of ours.
We’ve been hosting a Thanksgiving Dinner since 1994 I think. But every year except when I was in the Navy I have spent Thanksgiving with family. My parents had it when I was growing up. A few years at my sister’s and then my wife and I started hosting. We’ve had friends over for many of them and 1 friend for almost every one. We had a maximum of 29 people and I think our first one was only 6 of us including a friend from the Navy who ended up at a base near where I lived. That was cool.
There are so many options not in this Poll. Sometimes with family, sometimes with friends, sometimes nothing at all. Personally, I’d go out for Chinese every year if my wife would allow it.
Usually a family dinner; although one excellent TGiving was with a large group of people, each of whom had no family to be with on that particular day.
Canadian so ours is already over for the year but our tradition has always been 1-2 family dinners depending on who is where that year (ie, husbands family, my family, sometimes combined if we’re hosting) and one anti-thanksgiving with friends. Anti-thanksgiving was to pacify my husband who hates turkey. Our traditional meal is prime rib.
Scheduling for the Canadian one is a little more flexible. The holiday is officially the Monday but most people schedule the big meals for either Sat or Sun. We wait til all the family meals are booked and therefore the friends dinner is usually the Monday.
It’s a very food oriented weekend.
One year, Mrs. Starbucker and I sent the kiddos off with their grandmother to visit my brother in Cali over Thanksgiving break. I cannot remember what was happening that prevented the rest of the nearby family from coming over, but it was gearing up to be a truly strange, boring and lame Thanksgiving for us, as we weren’t hosting anything at all, whereas we normally host between 20-30 family members.
Somewhat early that Thanksgiving Day’s morning, we got a call from a family that lived in New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina wiped them out the year before and they found refuge in our region while things were still crazy there. We befriended them during that time and helped them out anyway we could. They lost almost everything, but we (with the help of our church) helped them gat an apartment to stay in for the interim, get furniture and ultimately get rebuilt. Anyway, they asked us what our T-Day plans were, and when we replied with “nothing”, they asked if they could come over - turns out they were back in town for a short visit.
They showed up 15 minutes later with several coolers of gumbo fixin’s, and we cooked and laughed and partied and watched football and ate and it was all so very wonderful. We froze leftovers and was eating on that kickass authentic gumbo for months later.
That was one of our best - and strangest -Thanksgivings ever.
Going to eat with my boyfriend’s family this year. My first Thanksgiving spent without my mom! Looking forward to it mightily.