Proper cranberry sauce still shows the can lines!
For the last 30 years, Thanksgiving dinner has been turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pea salad and gravy. The variables are mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls, and what wines get served. But this year…
the menu is Stuffed shells (half meat/spinach, half ricotta/spinach), salad, garlic bread, wine and pecan pie. I’ll still be thankful, believe me!
What is this ‘mashed’ you speak of so glibly? In my family, gravy is a beverage. 
I read this subject line just after my daughter called to discuss Thanksgiving dinner and informed me she would be using **paper plates **and plastic cutlery. She’s very anal about holidays. She invited five friends to join the family this year, which put her over the number of MATCHING china/silverware she owns. Nothing I said would change her mind. :smack:
On topic, for me there must be turkey, stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce. Anything else is just more gravy. 
The trifecta: Turkey, Stuffing and Cranberry Sauce.
My mom did. I would love to have them, but haven’t ever done them myself.
I love pearl onions. The wife will make them for me if I feel a hunger, even though she loathes onions. She’s a sweetie that way. 
Stuffing and out-of-the-can cranberry sauce with ridges.
Hours later, turkey on rye with a pickle on the side.
Pumpkin pie seen, but not eaten, in between.
We don’t do the pearl onions, but we’re going to my sister’s this year. She always has them (it comes from her husband’s side of the family). So I’ll probably get some of those this year, as part of the extended Thanksgiving menu.
My wife recalls them being sliced onions at least once, though. Is that often done?
Stuffing. It’s actually dressing, because I make it outside the bird, but it doesn’t sound right to me to say dressing.
Stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie…ham or even chicken instead of turkey is fine with me.
The main elements of our Thanksgiving haven’t changed since 1996 when I hosted for the first time:
Turkey
Herb, cracker and leek stuffing
Marbleized root vegetable mash
Herbed gravy
How I make the sweet potatoes or squash, what kind of rolls, jellied or homemade cran sauce can change, but the four items above must be there. To the point that I’ll make small versions for us when we’ve had thanksgiving elsewhere.
Stuffing is the only food I wouldn’t run in to any other time of the year, so stuffing is it.
I’d say cranberry sauce but my dad likes it and regularly serves it as a side throughout the year.
Often, we are invited out to my niece’s place. She and her husband do the traditional Turkey and a rather tame stuffing (cooked outside of the bird) mashed potatoes and gravy. I am always requested to bring the green bean casserole, which needs to be made exactly to the recipe on the French’s french fried onion package. No problem.
This year, They are traveling, and my wife and daughters are on our own.
I am working on the menu
Turkey, brown gravy (not “turkey gravy”), and some form of potatoes.
Actually, at my home, traditionally the first course is always the same, whether it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter - stuffed tortellini in chicken broth.
Turkey, cornbread stuffing, pumpkin pie. Everything else is optional for me, as I’m unlikely to eat it while we still have more Turkey, cornbread stuffing and pumpkin pie.
Green bean casserole, pumpkin pie, and turkey. Or ham.
Turkey (of course), mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberries in some form.
No one else has scalloped corn? Or Brown-n-serve rolls?
Pumpkin pie, but a few hours after the main meal.
Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans (NOT in casserole form–blech!), and some sort of cranberry stuff. And pumpkin pie.
Also, in a perfect world, those awesome banana quarters rolled in peanuts that my aunt makes.
Surely you don’t mean gravy from a can?
I agree with many others in this thread, that the defining dishes of Thanksgiving to my extended family are turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie.
Our private special dishes that are always included are corn fritters, sweet and sour cabbage, dilled Brussels sprouts sauteed in butter, dinner rolls, candied yams and cheesecake (for those who don’t like pumpkin pie). Everything is made from scratch and as much as possible, comes from our own dirt or hunting efforts. I don’t grow my own cranberries or yams, but everything else… yeah, it mostly came from the farm one way or another.