Thanksgiving Day Preparations & Dinner

The day of, we all come together and do a pot luck. The host cooks the meat and those driving to their house bring the salad, green bean casserole, potatoes, bread, appetizers, dessert. Everyone brings alcohol and the host might have water and tea and disposable cups. We hang out till everyone arrives and all the food is done/hot. Then we all eat in different rooms. Then one room will play a game (Apples to Apples is great as some kids can play too) and in another room, the grandpas take a nap on the couch while the younger men watch football. If the weather is good, then sometimes we'll go outside and play with a ball, frisbee, tricycles, etc instead of football and Apples to Apples.

Plan the menu before hand , all the women get up early, start the bird or the ham in the early morning hrs, let it cook then about noon start the rest of it , corn bread Dressing not stuffing, sweet potato casserole, sweet potato pie, green bean casserole, a salad of some sort, gravy for the dressing and turkey. This was what it was like with my grandmother and I miss it dearly , we are starting a new tradtion this year with my stepmother I hope we will carry on the things we did with grandmother.

Man now I'm hungry, I can almost taste that corn bread dressing.

We go to my mother's house and have Thanksgiving dinner. Then the next day I make my own dinner because we like to have left overs = ) Seriously, we make the exact same side dishes even, the only difference is sometimes I make a different jello salad then my mom does. The other difference is I make my turkey in a bag which my mom refuses to do, so my dinner is done long before hers is = ) My mom always preps her stuffing the evening before, I just do mine all in the same day. Sometimes I will make the jello salad the night before.

We eat at my parents house then my grandparents house lol. My parents house is a small gathering and just us 5 immediate family. my grandparents (my dads parents) house is everyone, my uncles, aunts, cousins (hes from a family of 8). Our tradition we do every year is deep frying a turkey. We always have pumpkin and pecan pie. My grandpa is quite old and drags his leg because of a car accident so we all go to his house and everyone brings stuff, my aunts usually cook a turkey in his over and make stuffing, casseroles, etc and we bring the pies and deep fried turkey. It's awesome, like a hugeeee buffet (2 kinds of turkeys, mmmm). Our family will go shopping together for Thanksgiving... I have a disfunctionate broken communication family so it's nice to be really together then. My dad is really the only person I can really talk to in my immediate family (the 5 is mom, dad, brother, my 23 month old daughter, and me). We'd go to my mom's side too but her sisters that live nearby are self-absorbed. One is really into her family, which is awesome (though sometimes is really flaky), and the other just acts like she's better than everyone and all rich. Anyways, thats our little holiday.

We rotate our holidays b/w our families b/c they are in two different states. When we are with my family in FL (yay), we do as much cooking the night before and EVERYONE is involved! The men go get the beverages and get the coolers filled for the weekend- my sisters get the silver polished and the appetizers prepped, mom and I do the side dishes and my husband gets the turkey brined. We order pizza that night and just hang out.

Day of- church in the late morning... big brunch...hang by the pool and then dressed up for dinner at 2:30. The best part though, for us, is brining it all back out with the desserts around 7! We have a huge crowd of extended family and friends so it's a big party all weekend.

For years we would have Thanksgiving over my Aunts house. We have a huge Italian family so turkey and potatoes was NEVER enough! We always had soup to start, then lasagna or ravioli, and THEN we would move on to the traditional "fixings" of a Thanksgiving feast. The greenbeans were always done Italian style with garlic and oil and we always had homemade stuffing AND stovetop (to add a little American flair). I happen to prefer stovetop to my Aunt's stuffing.

Now that the family has gotten SOOO big we have sort of split up. My sister-in-law and I rotate each year. One year I do TG and she gets Christmas then we switch the next year. She tends to stick with the Italian style TG while I like to keep it simple and stick to the main stuff.

I like to make my greenbean casserole a day ahead along with the sweetpotato casserole and the mashed potatoes. I also prep my ingreedients to jazz up my stovetop stuffing (chop, peel, etc.) and get my turkey dressed and ready for the oven. I don't stuff my turkey with stuffing. I put onions, celery, and carrots in there instead. I have always just been "weird" about sruffing from the bird.

I try to have guests bring the dessert and I will make one of my own or buy a pie. Then all I have to do is get up early to pop the turkey in, toss a small ham in the crock-pot, go back to bed for a bit (I get a large turkey) and then wake up stress free to the smell of Turkey in the oven!

I think it's key to prep ahead of time and get as much cooked or partially cooked a day or three in advance so all you need to do is reheat everything.

I also will put out some munchies like cheese, crackers and the like.

This is making me want to cook!

I have taken over hosting Thanksgiving for our family since it is too big a chore for my Mom now. I use my very best china, silver, serving dishes and linens and make as formal and festive a tablescape as possible for the holiday. I can spend a couple of hours just "dressing" the table but I ltruly enjoy being creative and trying something new each year. It's a creative outlet for me and a gift for my family.

For me, Thanksgiving is all about the dinner so I spend a lot of time coming up with a menu that uses seasonal foods, appetizers, several desserts and a variety of beverages. I like the sound of the other posters party-like atmosphere, I would love that, however, with our smaller, older family we mostly sit around a nice fire, play music and catch up with each other and enjoy lots of different kinds of food, wine and hot beverages. Thanksgiving is really the kick-off to the holiday season so I like to make it feel festive.

S.

What a nice question! We have spent each Thanksgiving since we had our first, with our friends who also had a baby that year (they were all alone with a new baby). We love going to their house for the Holiday weekend. The Men bake the Turkey (they fried it one year too). The ladies make the desserts and my hubby makes his infamous green bean casserol, it took four years for him to make it right :)! We spend all day cooking and visiting and making something special with the kiddos. Then Friday comes and the ladies spend the entire day shopping!

We host all holidays at our house since we have 18 people to feed and have the largest house. My hubby and I LOVE to cook. About a week before the holiday we sit down together and create a unique menu, which I print up and sent out to the family. Every holiday we add a brand new dish to the table. This has been a great experiment since the "fav's" can get kind of boring since Thanksgiving and Christmas are close. One person can ony eat green bean casserole so much :)
We do the shopping separate since we have a little one in the house but we right everything we need for the week and get it all at once. Then Wednesday night we prepare everything we can ahead of time (pies, stuffing, casseroles...etc) and we brine the turkey. In the AM the turkey goes in the oven and we clean up the house and spend time woth our guests. But I guess I would have to say our family "tradition" is the new menu item each holiday. It could be as simple as a new type of stuffing, or last Thanksgiving we made squash soup as an appetizer, instead of green bean casserole, we made snowpeas w/shallots with parmesean cheese (delicious!).

I enjoy cooking and I usually host it at my house. I actually start preparing food on Monday. This way I'm not stressed on Thursday.
I make my menu, shopping list and do my shopping over the weekend.
I make homemade cornbread stuffing, so I usually bake my cornbread on Monday and then save it in the fridge til Thursday to make the stuffing.
On Tuesday I prep any and all vegetables, fruits, etc. than I can - dice celery for stuffing, chop nuts for salad, etc.
On Wednesday, I make my brine and put the turkey in it. And then make my jello salad and my pumpkin pies.
Thursday morn I get the stuffing and any other dishes ready to be baked and put the turkey in and set the table.
In the afternoon, when people are here, I have VERY little to do. Just popping things in the oven, making my gravy, etc.
Enjoy!

we always had thanksgiving day with the family after dinner we would play board or card games with the children . the next day we left the children with my oldest two nieces then all the adults would go to the day after thanksgiving sales. when we got home we took the kids to a show or skating came home annd had leftovers for dinner.

Last year we started this. I make a full dinner with my hubby and boys, have family over and have a great time. This year we are going Black Friday Shopping.