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Post by kds on Nov 16, 2022 14:07:32 GMT
It's hard to believe Thanksgiving is only eight days away.
Although, that said, we've already done a couple Christmas activities, with more planned this weekend.
I know in the past, I've gone all "Get Off My Lawn" on the fact that Thanksgiving has pretty much been reduced to a diversion from the Christmas Season, I now find myself a part of what I used to think was a "problem." But, I'm a little older, and a little more conscious of just how fast time goes, so I have no problem with squeezing a little more Christmas joy out of the calendar. Especially when there's really no "Thanksgiving Season" to speak of.
So, anyway, what are the plans, if any, of the BBT community?
This year, for the first time, my wife and I will be splitting Thanksgiving Day between both of our families. In previous years, we'd always seen my family on Thanksgiving Day, and her family usually the Saturday after. But, this year, we're hitting up both, which is kind nice, as it frees up the rest of the long weekend. And both families are close, so it's not like we'll be spending a good portion of the day on the road. The only snag is both families are serving dinner....at the same time. Which means we'll wind up eating less, which isn't terrible.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Nov 16, 2022 14:18:13 GMT
I have three sisters and one of them will be hosting Thanksgiving for the entire extended family. It's only an hour drive from my house. My mother, who turns 90 on November 19th, is in a nursing home and it is still unsure if she will be attending. We are having a birthday party for her this Saturday.
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. I like everything about it - catching up with the family, the meal (a turkey dinner), the desserts, some football, and even the weather. Our office is closed on Friday though I might do some work. It's a great four day weekend and I am officially allowed to play my Christmas music. I stay away from the shopping; I can't handle the traffic/parking/people like I used to. But, yeah, I love Thanksgiving.
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Post by kds on Nov 16, 2022 14:35:39 GMT
I have three sisters and one of them will be hosting Thanksgiving for the entire extended family. It's only an hour drive from my house. My mother, who turns 90 on November 19th, is in a nursing home and it is still unsure if she will be attending. We are having a birthday party for her this Saturday.
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. I like everything about it - catching up with the family, the meal (a turkey dinner), the desserts, some football, and even the weather. Our office is closed on Friday though I might do some work. It's a great four day weekend and I am officially allowed to play my Christmas music. I stay away from the shopping; I can't handle the traffic/parking/people like I used to. But, yeah, I love Thanksgiving. I don't participate in any of the shopping madness of Thanksgiving weekend. I am glad though that a lot of big stores have stopped the nonsense of opening on Thanksgiving Day. I do pretty much all of my Christmas shopping online, and I've already put a pretty good dent in it. There was a short lived Thanksgiving "tradition" in the 1990s. FOX would air Home Alone immediately after the Cowboys game. So, that was a nice way to usher in the Christmas Season.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 16, 2022 14:43:00 GMT
Thanksgiving is easily my favorite real holiday. (Otherwise the NBA Draft would win out. ) It's my choice both for its intended meaning and the reality of how it's celebrated. Because I'm neither religious, nor super patriotic, nor a big fan of over-commercialization (e.g., shopping, shopping, shopping), many of the other holidays rub me the wrong way in one way or the other as I get older.
Thanksgiving, though? I love the idea. Even the relatively poor among us are pretty rich by historical, or even current global, standards. It's so easy to be caught up in our modern culture of envy--why should there be billionaires? why can't i get that new car/house/phone/private education/whatever?--that I really do think we fall short on appreciating what we do have. In many ways, we live better than kings from a few centuries ago, not in terms of relative wealth or actual property, but education, healthcare (even with our flawed system), etc. Many people have traveled not just this enormous country, but the world, in ways almost nobody could do. One of our biggest problems is the excess of food: obesity. When we get an infection, we don't die, we just get a prescription to knock it out. I don't mean to belittle the real problems we do have, but I think gratitude is a gift to work for even more than the objects for which we're grateful. That state of mind is probably more valuable than the physical or material things that "earn" gratitude. And yes, I struggle as much as anyone with ingratitude, envy, and such: I am not lecturing!
The celebration of a simple gathering with an autumn feast is also much to my liking. I like it both in theory, and in practice (in terms of the foods traditionally served).
My parents will be hosting our immediate family, although if I'm not mistaken it will be the Saturday after due to various competing obligations for some of my siblings with spouses. I've been asked to bring a vegetable dish, which I believe will be one I found and adapted a few weeks ago: roasted fennel, red onion, and apple (with cinnamon, cloves, etc.), which is diced and is almost like a bread-free stuffing. This is an added bonus, since we've got a gluten-free eater in the family. But let's be honest, it's turkey, mashed potatoes, and gravy I'm looking forward to!
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Post by kds on Nov 16, 2022 18:09:00 GMT
There's a fairly recent trend toward something called "Friendsgiving." This is a gathering of (you guessed it) friends instead of family, usually held in the weekends prior to Thanksgiving, and doesn't always have to feature a traditional menu.
I can understand the concept, and I probably really would've enjoyed this back when I was in my 20s or even early 30s. My group of close friends had a similar get together to celebrate Christmas a few times. I'm a little more of a homebody now, and with the Christmas activities filling up my calendar, having another -giving celebration is something I'd be less inclined to do now.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 16, 2022 18:43:59 GMT
I say anything that people do to find community and happiness in the holiday season, more power to them. I totally get why especially people who maybe are alienated from their families would find that meaningful, whether because they've moved far away or just are estranged for some reason.
In my 20s, some friends and I did something kind of like that, anyway, for Christmas and/or Thanksgiving. Nothing formal, nothing official, we didn't name it. But my friend group included a few people who really just didn't relate to their families, yet we all loved to cook (and drink...), and so we'd do that sort of thing. Usually we'd do some twists on things, like making a "traditional" Thanksgiving or Christmas meal, but with a spin, like doing it with Indian or Mexican ingredients and flavors. It was fun.
But I do think the idea of a "chosen family" fades for many people once they get into their later 20s or 30s and often, regardless of what they proclaimed a few years prior, either reconnect with their parents/families, or start their own families, or (most often) both. And count me in with respect to not wanting to do extra things: if a "Friendsgiving" becomes an obligation rather than a meaningful or fun thing, I would say dump it!
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Post by kds on Nov 16, 2022 20:28:02 GMT
I say anything that people do to find community and happiness in the holiday season, more power to them. I totally get why especially people who maybe are alienated from their families would find that meaningful, whether because they've moved far away or just are estranged for some reason.
In my 20s, some friends and I did something kind of like that, anyway, for Christmas and/or Thanksgiving. Nothing formal, nothing official, we didn't name it. But my friend group included a few people who really just didn't relate to their families, yet we all loved to cook (and drink...), and so we'd do that sort of thing. Usually we'd do some twists on things, like making a "traditional" Thanksgiving or Christmas meal, but with a spin, like doing it with Indian or Mexican ingredients and flavors. It was fun.
But I do think the idea of a "chosen family" fades for many people once they get into their later 20s or 30s and often, regardless of what they proclaimed a few years prior, either reconnect with their parents/families, or start their own families, or (most often) both. And count me in with respect to not wanting to do extra things: if a "Friendsgiving" becomes an obligation rather than a meaningful or fun thing, I would say dump it!
One of the other points I heard about Friendsgiving is that it's "drama free," which I can kind of relate to. I think when my friends and I got to be in our mid 20s, we decided to stop buying each other gifts for Christmas and got just together to have some good food, libations, and company. I know a couple times, we did it at a restaurant, and at least once or twice, I think I hosted, and we grilled. But, life, as it goes just got busy for most of us, and we haven't done this in quite some time. It's kind of sad that I honestly can't recall when we last did it. I know in 2016, three of us got together on a random Tuesday night at a bar and had a few drinks together in the week leading up to Christmas. I swear, there's never enough time.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Nov 17, 2022 0:58:53 GMT
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Post by carllove on Nov 17, 2022 2:49:20 GMT
Since I was a child, I have gone to my aunts house in Topeka, Kansas for Thanksgiving. Then COVID hit and My husband and I have enjoyed two years of Thanksgiving at home, with a Zoom meeting with the family. Looks like Thanksgiving is back this year. We actually enjoyed the years off - but my parents really wanted to go to my aunts this year, and this might be one of the last years they can travel with my sister driving them. So we will go. We are bringing tacos - since that had been our new tradition and my sister wanted us to bring them. I used to bring the green beans. I always bought fresh beans and it was a lot of work preparing them snapping and blanching. My sister is doing the green bean casserole this year. I expect the tacos to be a hit. Hopefully we can find the perfect avacados. I have to listen to “Cat’s in the Cradle” to remind me why I should enjoy Thanksgiving. I know I don’t have many more years left with my parents.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 17, 2022 12:43:32 GMT
You know I love my food, so after carllove mentioned her dish, I'm curious whether most of you have food traditions for your Thanksgivings? When I was a kid, I assumed everyone always had the same stereotypical, 1950s Midwestern style dinner we had, but a couple decades ago, when my sister moved to California and reported back about her friends' meals, I learned of the diversity of American Thanksgiving meals.
While our menus aren't set in stone, they are overwhelmingly along these lines:
- Turkey (occasionally ham, or both) - Mashed potatoes - Stuffing (aka dressing, depending on where you live) - Gravy - Sweet potatoes (in my earliest days, way overcooked and topped with marshmallows ) - Green bean casserole (more when I was little than now, this would be with canned everything: cream of mushroom/chicken soup, a canister of fried onions) - Bread or rolls of some sort
- Pie, almost always pumpkin at least as one option
As time has gone on, the menu has become more from scratch or fresh ingredients than canned; more vegetable dishes; usually a fresh fruit dish; etc.
You may have seen me whine a bit that because my family is very, very conservative in their tastes, my attempts at sprucing things up have often gone very badly! So now usually I try to keep it pretty basic. I'm curious whether anyone will even try my roasted fennel and apple dish this year, but my mom asked for it, so...?
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Post by kds on Nov 17, 2022 15:47:59 GMT
Our menu is somewhat similar
- Turkey - Ham - Stuffing - Gravy - Mashed Potatoes - Corn - Dinner Rolls - Sauerkraut and Kielbasa - Apparently, this is a very Baltimore thing due to the amount of people of Polish and German descent. - Pie - Apple and Pumpkin
Speaking of pumpkin, I've always associated pumpkin pie with Thanksgiving. That's why I find it a little perplexing that a lot of the pumpkin pie flavored things tend to vanish after Halloween.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 17, 2022 16:01:05 GMT
- Sauerkraut and Kielbasa - Apparently, this is a very Baltimore thing due to the amount of people of Polish and German descent. A-ha, exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to get out of this. I've never heard of these as Thanksgiving foods, but that does make a lot of sense. However, we do also have some very German and Polish concentrated communities even very near where I grew up. I wonder if I was totally ignorant of what families were doing in small towns just 15, 30 miles away!
(Heck, I'm 25% German, myself. But the other 75% is Scandinavian, including everyone who did all the cooking historically...so it was more lefse than sauerkraut.)
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Post by kds on Nov 17, 2022 16:06:39 GMT
- Sauerkraut and Kielbasa - Apparently, this is a very Baltimore thing due to the amount of people of Polish and German descent. A-ha, exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to get out of this. I've never heard of these as Thanksgiving foods, but that does make a lot of sense. However, we do also have some very German and Polish concentrated communities even very near where I grew up. I wonder if I was totally ignorant of what families were doing in small towns just 15, 30 miles away!
(Heck, I'm 25% German, myself. But the other 75% is Scandinavian, including everyone who did all the cooking historically...so it was more lefse than sauerkraut.)
Funny thing is I actually didn't start eating sauerkraut until, maybe 3-4 years ago. But, I cannot imagine Thanksgiving or Christmas without the smell of sauerkraut.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 17, 2022 16:15:27 GMT
It had never occurred to me before this morning that while my maternal grandpa was 100% German, we literally NEVER had German foods at their house, even on holidays. It was always my 100% Norwegian grandma's foods, whether lefse, krumkake, or even one dish sure to give you a heart attack, and raspekaker, a kind of potato-dumpling dough with tons of butter pressed into a baking dish and topped with bacon and baked. (I have never seen a recipe that makes it that way; usually it is more a potato dumpling with bacon or pork in the middle, boiled, and then sometimes pressed and fried afterward. Either way ... totally healthy, right!?)
But anyway, point being ... I wonder if my grandpa ever got peeved that we never ate German food!?
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 21, 2022 14:28:24 GMT
Here I am, about two hours into my workday, and I'm struggling! There is something about knowing it's a short week that makes things worse, not better. I was already off Thursday-Friday this week, but this morning decided to take Wednesday afternoon, too.
Simple, routine things are agonizing. I complete some task, then I check my (personal) email, refresh this board in case some new post will distract me, sing along to whatever song is playing in the background ... I'm a weak man. I can't make myself focus on work today.
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