For the first time in my life, I will not celebrate the holiday of the turkey with a small horde of relatives. This year, it will be just four of us. And I don’t quite know what to do about it.
I’m not entirely sad about having an abbreviated Thanksgiving, because traditions can get boring, and since it’s me doing all the heavy lifting in the kitchen, they are a lot of work. We have already decided that we’re going to be Jewish on Christmas Day this year and order Chinese Food. Maybe Christmas Eve will be Indian Food, but that food genre is still up in the air. Ditching the Italian 13 fish tradition would be hugely controversial, and I am not ready for that debate.
Our abbreviated Thanksgiving will still involve a turkey, just a smaller one. The bird is currently sitting in a bath of salt in the fridge, doing its brining magic. There will be stuffing and mashed potatoes, because every day is a good day for carbs. Steve’s already jarred up his great-grandmother’s recipe for cranberry sauce and roasted pumpkin for the pies.
So, in many ways, our Thanksgiving will still be very Thanksgiving-y. We’re cooking, unlike many of my friends. Even my mother is getting turkey take-out.
But our holiday will be lower key this year. We won’t put on nice clothes and put the nice towels in the bathroom. I’m not worried about having enough food and making sure the timing is correct. We’ll probably watch a lot of tv — the parade in the morning, because that Ian’s favorite and then whatever Avenger movies are on, just not Guardians of the Galaxy, because we’ve watched that one too many times.
And we will hopefully take the time, sometime before dinner, to stop and think on this weirdest of weird Thanksgivings how grateful we are to be alive and well. That we have survived this far with all of our marbles intact and our love for each other still strong, despite being in close quarters and having some terribly annoying habits, like drinking water too loudly. That our oldies are still with us to enjoy a few more holidays in the future, where they will still manage to make us feel guilty about random shit, even though we are now in our fifties. That we can walk outside the house every morning for a daily walk and smell the fresh air and know that the day is full of possibilities.
Yes, we’ve got it good.
Eat well, my friends. Relax and love your cave-bear family members. I’ll be back on Friday.
Apt. 11d 
We do not celebrate Christmas, so Thanksgiving is our big holiday as an extended family on my spouse’s side. We have gotten together for 25+ years, initially traveling cross country, but for the past two decades having collected up within a couple of hours drive. This year we are in our family groupings and will do a family zoom on Thursday to maintain a semblance of getting together.
Thanksgiving is easy for me and has gotten easier now that the grandparents are arranging everything (last 3 have been in big houses, catered by grandparents). We show up, talk, and eat and find a museum or garden to go to.
We have ordered too much food and I made a family Thanksgiving dish (cranberry-jalapeno salsa) for the first time. My niece in law, who usually makes it with her mother, texted me the recipe in seconds.
LikeLike
Would you like to share that recipe???
LikeLike
Ooh, fun
Food processor
1 bag cranberries chop in food processor
Separately
one small white onion and
two ribs celery chop in processor
one jalapeño, Small dice with knife (remove seeds for less spice)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cups sugar
3 Tablespoon lime juice
Combine
Let sit overnight
Garnish with cilantro and serve with chips
LikeLike
Thank you! We’ll try it out, although one child is allergic to celery and the other does not like cilantro.
LikeLike
We’re keeping it small here too, Laura. Best wishes for a happy little Thanksgiving tomorrow!
LikeLike
Thanks, Russell! You too!
LikeLike
Just me and my son (age 30), as it has been since March. We’re having Honey Baked Ham, potatoes au gratin, and broccoli; marionberry pie for dessert. Thanksgiving hasn’t been a big deal to me for many years, but I’m glad to have a four day weekend off work. I hope everyone find contentment this holiday season.
LikeLike
I have been trying to get to the West Coast more for Thanksgiving the last few years, but a small nuclear family Thanksgiving has been the norm for us. Husband is in charge of pies (pumpkin, apple and maybe something else?). I fear that our store cooked turkey may be kind of sad, but I’ll do boxed cornbread stuffing (which is pretty good), scratch cranberry sauce (very satisfying to make and also very easy), sweet potatoes, some sort of veggies, and I’m not sure what else. Husband (who is not American) keeps offering to make turkey curry for Thanksgiving, and the rest of the family keeps shooting the idea down.
Our two youngest got a whole week off of school while our college freshman and my husband have just a 4-day weekend, with a lot of school work hanging over the college freshman’s head. Hence, half of our household is in the holiday spirit and the other half isn’t. I’m sure we’ll enjoy Thanksgiving dinner, but I’ve got vicarious school stress for the college freshman.
My husband is ordering glutinous rice flour, red bean paste and some sort of sesame paste for some sort of teen cooking project. The college freshman likes making Japanese mochi.
LikeLike
I haven’t eaten turkey since 1997 (morning sickness overlapped Thanksgiving for both kids). I haven’t been able to smell Thanksgiving food without feeling nauseous, which has made 22 of the last 23 Thanksgivings *not* my favorite time (my husband broke his collarbone 3 days before Thanksgiving a few years ago, so I made a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving dinner. I’m not kidding; S, a vegetarian, and I were thrilled).
My husband is planning to make pumpkin curry tomorrow, which our son won’t eat. He can make himself a turkey sandwich with cold cuts. 😛
I want to plan a Zoom meeting for the family and do a Rent singalong (my sisters and I all love the musical and would have fun annoying our husbands and children). Or maybe play a game of some sort. We’ll see. I have plenty of grading to do.
LikeLike
My two oldest boys are locked down in their German boarding school this year. Normally, they are given leave to come home and celebrate with us, but not this year. So I feel particularly unmotivated this year. I struggle between just forgetting about it and making it nice for my American husband and two remaining kids. But everybody is safe and healthy. That is more than most people can say. So, turkey it is. We have much to be grateful for.
Happy Thanksgiving!
LikeLike
No Thanksgiving here in NZ (of course). Just the usual end-of-school-year craziness (seniors are in exams right now), and being over-committed to virtually everything.
Mr 13 is in a musical theatre variety show this Saturday (2 performances), and a Jazz concert (sax solo) next Saturday. I am dealing with all the logistics of getting him to and from rehearsals and performances AND dealing with him whinging about how it’s impacting on his online gaming time!
Needless to say, I am not impressed, and patience is eroding fast….
But just to show that food is an international issue in November…. I’m baking christmas cakes (one of the benefits of working from home!). Mini christmas cakes (topped with glazed fruit and nuts) are my go-to end-of-year teacher present. So I make a *lot* of them…. And, of course, he had 2 tutors who finished this week – so I had to accelerate the program 😉
Right now, I’m feeling that family is vastly over-rated. And would look forward to a nice quarantine (14-days in a hotel room, ALONE, with someone else cooking).
I know that’s non-helpful to all of you missing out on family right now. But things will get better, and there is light on the other side of the tunnel. Hopefully a vaccine will see all of us celebrating our various November festivals in person in 2021.
LikeLike
Ann said,
“whinging about how it’s impacting on his online gaming time!”
Hee!
“Mini christmas cakes (topped with glazed fruit and nuts) are my go-to end-of-year teacher present. So I make a *lot* of them….”
I almost forgot that I have a Collin Street Bakery fruitcake (pineapples, cherries, pecans) set aside for later this weekend.
https://collinstreet.com/
My teens are very fond of them. Collin Street fruitcakes are very good with tea.
“Hopefully a vaccine will see all of us celebrating our various November festivals in person in 2021.”
Or even Easter and Passover 2021!
LikeLike
Happy Thanksgiving. I have gotten, a bit later than planned, the turkey in the oven.
LikeLike
Just the two of us at home for Thanksgiving this year – Zoomed with my family at noon, then his family at 1, and turkey is just out of the oven. (I could live without turkey but not without making turkey soup.) I have stuff for all the side dishes in case I get motivated, but am only committed to stuffing and salad; pie is already made.
Happy Thanksgiving to Laura and the whole 11d gang!
LikeLike
af184793 said, “I could live without turkey but not without making turkey soup.”
I’m also not a big turkey fan, but it’s really good surrounded by all its side dish friends.
LikeLike
I discovered that a turkey can be Too Small. We had a 10 pound turkey for 6 people. we have some leftovers, but not enough to warrant the extra work of a turkey. This is the fourth turkey I’ve ever cooked, so I’m still learning. A huge amount of the weight of a turkey is devoted to its chassis. In future, I think the smallest turkey I’ll buy will be 12 pounds.
Until yesterday, my family always went to a restaurant for Thanksgiving, as my grandmother claimed she cooked 364 days of the year, and wanted one day off.
Our dinner yesterday was much tastier than any restaurant Thanksgiving dinner I’ve had.
The grown children have learned to bake. That means we had a choice of:
Apple crisp
Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
Gooseberry Pie
As we had split Thanksgiving dinners, the pies were delivered by the child who also baked a lemon meringue pie.
LikeLike
Cranberry said, “A huge amount of the weight of a turkey is devoted to its chassis.”
That’s my issue with rotisserie chicken–too high bone-to-meat ratio.
“Until yesterday, my family always went to a restaurant for Thanksgiving, as my grandmother claimed she cooked 364 days of the year, and wanted one day off. Our dinner yesterday was much tastier than any restaurant Thanksgiving dinner I’ve had.”
Oh, wow, I award your grandmother maximum Northern WASP points.
Restaurant Thanksgiving dinners are kind of basic, but they have their place in the Thanksgiving eco-system. Not as nice as a good home Thanksgiving, but better than nothing.
The pies and crisp sound fantastic. Where did you source your gooseberries?
I was at the grocery store this morning (heavenly peace and calm) and I saw a rather audacious item: a medium-sized $8.99 pack of premade stuffing and ditto for mashed potatoes. For $8.99, I would expect a small bucket of both.
We actually had a fire alarm going off during the first phase of our Thanksgiving dinner, as some apple pie goo overflowed too abundantly onto the interior of the oven. Lessons were learned. The pie was good, though.
LikeLike
The gooseberries were Oregon Fruit gooseberries from Amazon, last year. In the interim, they’re now 25% more expensive.
Gooseberries are hard to find in this part of the country, due to their history and legal status. It is literally forbidden fruit for us. https://thegreenergrassfarm.com/tag/gooseberry/
My family likes sour–they like dressings with more vinegar than oil, etc.
LikeLike
Cranberry said, “Gooseberries are hard to find in this part of the country, due to their history and legal status. It is literally forbidden fruit for us.”
Oh my goodness!
I don’t think I’ve ever seen them fresh in the US, but I loved gooseberry preserves in Russia. The preserved berries look like gems in the jar.
LikeLike
Here’s a nice slice of American food history:
https://www.history.com/news/eleanor-roosevelt-white-house-menu-bad-food
It looks like the Roosevelts unbent a bit for Thanksgiving, though:
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/photos/the-roosevelts-enjoy-a-thanksgiving-meal-in-1935
LikeLike
I’m wondering if a lot of families won’t be changing their food traditions for Thanksgiving after this year when they discover how much they like the change? Or maybe post pandemic will be an Uber-traditional holiday?
Anyway, my wife and I are giving thanks that her mom and mom’s husband both recovered from COVID-19. Since her mom recently finished treatment for lung cancer we were worried. They did say the virus packed a wallop in terms of fatigue and brain fog. But they are 90% better!
LikeLike
Marianne said, “Since her mom recently finished treatment for lung cancer we were worried. They did say the virus packed a wallop in terms of fatigue and brain fog. But they are 90% better!”
Very good!
LikeLike
That’s awesome!
LikeLike