What are your plans for Thanksgiving?... Have you been invited to spend it with family or friends?... Are you spending it alone?... (I hope not)... Are you cooking at home?... If so, what's on your menu?
We are spending Thanksgiving at home this year. I feel like my family needs the time together to promote cohesion since my husband and I parted ways this past spring.
Our menu will include: Turkey Cornbread Dressing (My Great-Grandmother's receipe) Giblet Gravy (My Great-Grandmother's receipe) Cranberry Sauce Field Peas (with onions and ham hock) Cabbage (with potatos and ham) Green Bean Casserole (with mushrooms and grilled onions) Potato Salad (with crumbled bacon and grilled onions) Brown & Serve Rolls Sweet Potato Pie (with pecans and toasted marshmallows on top) Fudge Brownies (with pecans, My Great-Grandmother's receipe)
My wife will be on duty that day, but I and the other two peeps of this household will be chowing down on traditional holiday fare that Herself is preparing ahead of time. We'd prefer to wait until she gets home, but that isn't the way she sees things, and we know better than to chance accusations of insubordination when she's wearing her game face.
Since she's doing the cooking, the food will be exceptional.
After dining, we'll wait until Jan arrives back at the house before diving into dessert.
She will be off this weekend, and that's when the Christmas tree goes up.
It took my sweetie almost ten years to train me in the proper observance of holidays, and now I'm with the program. We do all the major holidays, as well as St George's Day, Moon Day, the Marine Corps Birthday, and this coming year for the first time, St Augustine's Birthday.
She sounds formidable, Wurdguy... LOL... :0)... But I'm curious, why are the other holidays so important to you? The only one I have heard of id the Marine Corps Birthday, and I'm sorry to say that I don't know when it is.
The Marine Corps Birthday is November 10th, the day before Veterans Day. Herself flies our Marine Corps flag over the patio, and then sits and listens to my old war stories, which aren't really war stories, cos I never left the states during my tour.
In this day and time, since all Americans are now hyphenated, and I'm an Anglo-American, we celebrate the birth of St. George, the patron saint of England. (Herself is Irish / English / Cherokee.)
Moon Day occurs on July 20th. As you know, on that day, Armstrong stepped out onto the lunar surface. For the last 35 years, Jan and I purchase a case of Moon Pies, which we don't eat but pass out as party favors. For the Moon Day feast itself, we scarf American processed cheese, our colas of choice, hot dogs (turkey dogs these days), and i read aloud from the poem Little Gidding, the part about the unseen gate.
from TS Eliot's Little Gidding:
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.
Augustine lived around 300 AD. It nearly blew my mind to read recently his Confessions, and realize the enormity of what he was saying. I have to confess, we'll probably be flying our St George's flag for that occasion, and we'll be celebrating Augustine's life on the anniversary of his death, August 28th, and not his birthday, which is in November, too near the Marine Corps Birthday.
If you're in town that day, stop by and I'll read you some of the dynamite parts of A's works, then we can discuss it.
Sounds wonderful!... "Herself" sounds like a wonderful character in her own right.
I'm Scots/English/French/German... My family never celebrated ANYTHING unless alcohol was involved... LOL... I don't drink, though... Never did. I'm too much of a control freak... ;0)
BTW... I read your profile. "The Quite Man" is one of my favorites as well. John Wayne & Maureen O'Hara at their best, IMO... Michaleen Oge Flynn is my favorite character in that movie, "When I drink whiskey, I drink whiskey; and when I drink water, I drink water."
Love the moon pie idea. Here we throw them at Mardi Gras... "Krewe of Moon Pie."... :0)
Perhaps no patty-fingers at first, but the hope was that some serious patty-fingering would take place following the successful completion of the courtship. Makes one wish they had a special someone to start that process with, doesn't it?
As for the upcoming holiday feast, that is now in the hands of the children. My little house hardly holds the kid and I, let alone children, in-laws and grands. And I planned it that way. It's my turn to eat, visit, then go, leaving the clean-up to the hostess. There are some sure benefits to getting older!
My family is scattered this year. Daughter working, grandkids going with their Dad to another relatives, Mom, brother and sister in law going out to eat with sister in law's parents and I'm going to a friends about an hour from here and celebrate with them. I'm makeing a few dishes to take such as deviled eggs, green bean casserole, a jello/fruit/nut salad and sweet potatoe rolls which are more of a dessert to die for. I know she's making turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed potatoe, and I'm not sure of the rest, but whatever it will be great because we're all together.
We have a big dinner 3 times a year. Christmas, Eater and thanksgiving. My son and his wife (she does all the cooking-I pay for the food and provide the house) We have friends over that have no families here, one couple now in thier 50's, has been coming since she was about 14-14, (came with her dad and siblings-they all live in Ark.now) My sons friend, has been coming for 25 years, this year he is bringing a girlfriend and her daughter. A friend I worked with for too many years has been coming for 28 years, he is originally from Chicago and his family is scattered. Then another kid I worked with, his mother died 12 years ago and he always calls me mom,(his dad remarried and moved to Utah and his only brothr died) We have made our own "Family" of friends. We will have a turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed potaoes, green been casserole, cole slaw,lasange, green chile, rolls, pumpkin pie, and cake. This year we are winging it as my daughter-in-law is having surgery on Weds so will be in hospital. I cook the turkey and everyone else brings something.
