...or are you NOT doing turkey for Thanksgiving? What's the 'weird' thing you're doing as a family tradition? Skipping cranberry sauce? Skipping TURKEY?

What's YOUR tradition? What are you looking forward to eating? Or doing? Or NOT doing, on Thanksgiving Day?

The Bliss house will be presenting a beautifully browned turkey with all the trimmings. In addition, I'm going to make traditional stuffing. As a side dish, I'm making stuffing with oysters - yum!

Who's getting up at 3 am to get a deal? Who's sleeping in? Who's got family coming in?

Sometimes we are so geared toward the emotions revolving around the infidelity that spouses inflict upon our posters that we forget to be thankful for what we have. It might not always be what we want, but it's OURS.

Take a minute and chime in on this thread as a way of remembering that there are so many good things in life!

I have family coming on Thanksgiving and will be making a turkey dinner with all the fixings. And we AVOID shopping on Black Friday!! I like internet shopping for Christmas...

Have never had this but it sounds sooooo good. Is it hard to make?

Thanksgiving is *my* holiday (at my house), and my sisters and I get together the evening before with a bottle of wine and do a lot of the prep work together so we don't have to be so crazy the day of. Traditional turkey dinner with all the fixings.

I'm frying a turkey again this year. It's thawing now. I'll set it to brine Wednesday and fry it at my mom's house on Thursday. It's always a hit, but I usually have a fight on my hands keeping the 'pickers' out of it until it's rested enough to carve.

My nephew will be there with his fiancee. Don't know if his mom (my sister) will be there or not - they are currently estranged over his decision to convert to Islam to marry her. Should be an interesting time...

We're also bringing a birthday cake. My oldest turned 8 on the 21st, and my youngest turns 2 on the 26th. Q4 is busy for us with 4 birthdays, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years!


This was a hit in my family...for everyone but me because I can't stand oysters. I think it's regular bread stuffing and you dump in a can or so of oysters (including liquid) but cut back on the other liquids like milk or chicken stock.

We're empty nesters living on a small island in the north Atlantic. We will have a couple of whole white fish, dredged in a bit of flour and seasonings and sauteed in olive oil. Potatoes on the side. A hike later in the day.

H is in retail so we have the whole Black Friday thing the day after, but since the base is so small, the day doesn't start at 3AM; rather, the store opens an hour earlier than usual--at 9AM. Life is SO simple here.

Now if we were home, as in back home, we'd be going to our daughter's in-laws home for a big turkey feast with all the children, but sigh.....that's for another year---2015, God willing.

I'll be cooking turkey on Christmas Day, where it belongs!

As one who is "re-bachelored," Thanksgiving alone isn't my cup of tea. So I invited an old friend and his wife over after learning they had no plans for the day.

Since the prospect of cooking a turkey (which I've never done before) seemed a little daunting, I have ordered a suite of dishes from Whole Foods, a chain of upscale grocery stores that has quite the prepared foods section!

I'll pick up the food on Wednesday, then all I have to do is heat the separate itemss when it's time.

Thanksgiving was last month sillys.

So how many of you have turkey on Thanksgiving and again on Christmas Day? See, that's why we have them so much further apart. And living in a border town, we get black Friday deals too. Best of BOTH worlds.

That's an odd day for turkey.

My brother-in-law is frying a turkey for Thanksgiving this year. He's flavoring it Jalapeno Cheddar. I don't usually like fried turkey, but I'm fascinated by the flavor, so I'll probably try a little.

I'll be brining and slow roasting a turkey next week for my immediate family.

I'll be taking a pecanless pie for my other brother-in-law who can't eat pecans, and perhaps a cherry pie that my son wants to make. And I'll be taking some whole-berry cranberry sauce because my dad and I like it, and nobody else ever brings it.

I think I'll bake some homemade rolls, too.

The rest of my family should be taking care of the rest - sweet potatoes, stuffing, broccoli rice casserole ....

Been Black Friday shopping exactly once in my life. Don't know if I'll ever do it again. While I love shopping, I hate crowds. So much easier to shop at home on my computer

People, people, PEOPLE! Must we argue this?? Everyone knows that it's turkey on Thanksgiving, and HAM on Christmas Day! Sheesh!

That's so interesting, 51. Is it traditional to have fish on Christmas Day where you live?

It's yummy! (If you like oysters! Nobody else in my family will eat them, so I have to make a little side of it for myself, in addition to the regular kind.)

It's simple - you just make your stuffing the way you normally do, and throw in a can of chopped oysters. You do use some of the liquid to help moisten the bread crumbs.

The Portuguese on this island typically fix lots of salted cod throughout the Christmas season; they relied on fish for many years as a staple.

But the no-turkey thing is mostly just us. We had only one child, and we lived overseas for 14 years, away from our family, sadly. Fixing the whole turkey dinner was just overkill for us. So we most often did funny things like a couple of pounds of shrimp or chicken, smaller stuff. If a friend was fixing a turkey and invited us, we always enjoyed it, so it's nothing against turkey.

This year, we bought a large-ish smoked turkey to bring in for the employees on Thanksgiving. At least I get to keep the carcass to make some stock later on.

Now that it's just my H and me at home, we fix whatever we feel like eating, and quite often it's fish.

BUT MB I could eat TURKEY EVERYDAY. That`s why we have Thanksgiving in October. Then we can have turkey on BOTH. Ham is for Easter. Although, in my family we have turkey then too. I couldn`t imagine Christmas day without TURKEY

Our family was 50-50 on ham versus turkey for Christmas day. When it was just my wife and I we had a duck...really tasty if you get the skin right...

Thanksgiving without turkey would be like:

• Independence Day(US) without fireworks!
• Valentine's Day without cards!
• Halloween without costumes!
• New Year's Day without hangovers!
• Talk-Like-A-Pirate-Day without "Arrrrr, matey!"

Bride does the bird and sides. Yours truly does the desserts - this year Chocolate Pecan, and (from scratch) Pumpkin Chiffon pies!

Okay, I'll let you live I agree that turkey is one of God's more wonderful inventions.

But yes, ham IS for Easter. And Christmas. I think a perfect world would be ham for early dinner, and then turkey and stuffing to snack on later.

And no, I do not work for a gym.

H and I are baking apple and pumpkin pies today. My mom showed my how to make the pastry crust when I was little - no measurements. H's favorite food in the whole world is pumpkin pie. I bake it three times a year - his birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

We have close to 5 inches of snow and it is still coming down.

AM

H's favorite food in the whole world is pumpkin pie. I bake it three times a year - his birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Need I ask the obvious question?

And what question would that be?

We're doing Thanksgiving at my youngest son's new home and I don't have to cook the turkey! Yay!! I'm bringing Deviled Eggs, Green Bean Casserole, Cranberry Sauce and Creamy Au Gratin Potatoes. Can't wait!

When I was a boy, our traditional Thanksgiving meal meant going to the cafeteria! Always enjoyed it, and nobody had to make anything. And there was no cleanup!!! I could have turkey if I wanted -- or ham, fish, chicken fried steak, chicken and dumplings ...

My mind is boggling, Prisca, at the thought of a pie without any ingredients. How do you make a pecanless pie? Just the crust?

Traditional roasted turkey tomorrow at the family get together. When I return home on Saturday, I'll deep fry a couple of birds to have as snacks for the next month.

MY mind is boggling over how she's going to top the smorgasbord markos had when he was growing up!

That sounds like Luby's. We order our giblet gravy and dressing every year from Luby's. It's insane how quickly they sell out and you have to get there before God even gets up to get it!

Luby's and the Cowboys. Two traditions we always keep on Thanksgiving.

In those days Luby's had competition from other cafeterias as well. I have Thanksgiving memories from all three of what used to be the big chains here, including Luby's.

Watching cafeterias die out the last few years has been pretty emotional for me. Last time we ate at one was the night Prisca went into labor with our twins, if I remember right. That cafeteria is closed now.

Shoot, and many of the people I used to eat there with have passed away.

Stop, you're making me sad!

I guess I can't complain about these places dying out if I don't eat there any more.

I didn't eat it all at one meal, silly!

She's melting a stick and a half of butter to make me a pecan pie right now, actually.

Wait, she seems to be tasting that butter herself. I'm not sure she's gonna share!

I still remember the Thanksgivings when I was a kid in WI - sometimes a light snowfall early on Thanksgiving morning, but ALWAYS the Packers/Lions football game before the dinner, . Back in the late 50's and early 60's that was the only game played. I clearly remember Thanksgiving 1962, the 10 - 0 Packers were defeated by Detroit, and except for my mom, we were all terriby depressed! And guess what, talk about karma, Green Bay is 10 - 0 this year and play the Lions tomorrow! This year the meal tradition sort of ends tho - unfortunately Char will not be here and this is our first Thanksviving since 1969 not together. My son and his girlfriend will be here and he wanted the salmon loaf that I sometimes make. So, am up now doing some dicing and preparation. There will be stuffing and gravy to go with the salmon loaf tho - a simpler variety - Stove Top out of the box, but am going to add diced sausage, mushrooms, onion, celery, etc. and bake in the oven for abit after cooking on the stove. There will be cranberry sauce, green beans and walnuts, and pumpkin pie and ice cream tho.

The last few years on Christmas eve I've made shrimp scampi with roasted asparagus, and that has become a tradition here now. This kind of began back around Christmas 1974 when Char and I were on a camping trip to Disney World, ended up in Macon, GA on the way there on the second night out, and just happened on a restaurant that was still open late on Christmas Eve, and we had the best shrimp scampi dinners ever.

Tom

Tom, are you still a fan? If so, good for you!

Would you do me a favor, and post the recipe for your salmon loaf to the "What's For Dinner" thread? I'd like to try it, all the more knowing it came from you.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and all your family.

You mean it was a cafeteria and you didn't have a little bit of everything? I don't think I could have resisted!

Not when you pay for each entree!

I haven't actually made it yet, but we'll see how it tastes:
Faux Pecan Pie

No smorgasbord beats my pecan pie You should've seen him melt at the first bite!