Thanksgiving 2007

Every year Thanksgiving Day celebrations get smaller and smaller. As a child we tended to have large family gatherings. Each person in the family had special dishes that they enjoyed making or sharing. Our thanksgiving dinners were more of a traditional pot luck style. My grandpa’s house usually the meeting spot and there tended to be around 15 people. Through out the years children have grown up, jobs have changes and families moved. My family is scattered over a few states now which makes it difficult to celebrate. For the past 3 years we have gone out to the desert with multiple other motor homes and camped out. We would have every dish that we tradionally enjoyed and would deep fry a turkey. My immediate family now lives in Oregon, which makes it hard to get down to the desert because of travel time. My family decided to miss the trip down to the desert and everyone in my family met here in Chico. We went to my Aunts house for thanksgiving and we all got to cook our dinner. Each family got to bring their favorite dishes, appetizers, or deserts.
I can’t pinpoint a specific tradition that our family carries out but we do cook all day and watch the football game that is televised on TV. Everyone socializes and checks the process of their dishes. My family has always waited to eat later in the afternoon. Things that my family has on the table every single year for thanksgiving consist of green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, stuffing and a turkey. This year we had a turkey as well as a goose and a ham. This year my immediate family celebrated the reunion of the family. We were very thankful that all four of us could finally get together in over a year, we got to be with family, we were blessed with some of the best tasting food I have ever eaten and we got to enjoy each others company.
We had the choice of over 6 different pies. Every year no matter where we are celebrating thanksgiving my mother has to have pumpkin pie, and my father has to have cheesecake pumpkin pie. A few of the pies this year were actually homemade too! Holidays are celebrated differently family to family. I hope that when I have children we can start a new tradition of celebrating thanksgiving and sharing recipes with one another. Thanksgiving can be celebrated by every individual differently but in spirit we are all celebrating the same thing, so remember to be thankful for everything!