How are you celebrating Thanksgiving?

My wonderful sister-in-law and her husband invited my family for dinner. It was truly a blessing as my daughter just gave birth to my first grandchild (a boy) on Tuesday and came home form the hospital yesterday morning.

Friends who live a mile away invited me and another friend who is also a widow to eat Thanksgiving dinner with them, also their doctor son and wife. It was very nice with all the traditional foods of Thanksgiving. I provided a relish tray. We had an enjoyable time telling why we were thankful and enjoying the great turkey and the rest of the good food.

Donna

We went to my cousin Greg's yesterday. A large gathering of extended family.

At 5:39, Greg took us all outside and we watched the Space Shuttle and International Space Station come overhead. The Shuttle had already un-docked from the Station and so they came over one right behind the other. The crowd ranged in age from 2 years old to 90 years old.

Nice that you watched the Space Shuttle & International Space Station with your whole family. Great for all!

DH and I dined at a local restaurant. After about 30 years of having family at our house, this was quite a change. Our five children are scattered across the country, but all had celebrations with their families and extended families, and we talked with each of them.

None of the above. In England our Harvest Festival is in September, every church seems to organise their own date.

Produce and groceries are brought to a thanksgiving church service. There is usually a children's procession, all with their baskets. Afterwards everything is divided and distributed to the elderly and poor. Our local church auctions off the produce and distributes the proceeds.

There are no family festivities or special meals. Our big turkey meal is at Christmas.

WOW. Melody. As the kids would say "Awesome"! How did you view the shuttle and space station? Telescope? Binoculars? Might have been pretty hard with the naked eye, however, we have viewed some of the satellites if you know just when and where to look.

Galina,

I really enjoyed reading your post and having this opportunity to learn more about the celebrations and customs of your country. Thank you for sharing this with us.

They looked like two very bright stars moving across the sky. The Shuttle was brighter as it had already dropped closer to the Earth, but both were as bright or brighter than Jupiter, which is in the southern part of the sky at the moment. Since it was right at sunset, the sun under the horizon reflected off of them and they appeared as stars. Totally naked eye stuff...they moved too quickly to keep binoculars trained on them with any accuracy. They were gone in less than 5 minutes. It was totally awesome to have viewed them as a multi-generational family group.

I hope someone writes this down for the ones too young to remember. My DH and I finally got to see one of the shuttle launches and it is totally awe inspiring. It brings tears to your eyes thinking of where these astronauts are going and to be able to view Earth from space. And with them goes a prayer that they will return to Earth safely. We have photos to show to our great-grandchildren, who were only born in the summer and will be too young to see a launch themselves, as the space program will be ending soon.

melody,

I'm so glad your family was able to view the shuttle and space station. I've been wanting to see it, but on the rare occasions when the opportunity presents itself I either forget or its at an inconvenient time or I go out to find the sky covered with clouds.


JeanK - the opportunity to watch an actual launch and feel the vibrations from the power of the thing must surely be breathtaking.

Jim, I read your story about the turkey wings and French butchers! I was ROFL...I, too, would like to know where the rest of the turkey went! In a way, it kind of reminded me of the year my DD was born. For a time I lived overseas, in Bizerte, Tunisia. I was told I was due toward the end of November, but that wasn't meant to be. On the evening of the 22nd, I went into labor after wondering if my pregnancy would just never end. On the morning of December 23rd, my baby was born. It was my first Christmas away from home, but my daughter was fine and I was grateful. DH took us home to our apartment on the 25th. Of course, no nice Christmas dinner....someone cooked some soup for us, I think. I remember sometimes shopping over there could get interesting! I could buy a chicken and would have them kill and pluck it at the market. I think I tried plucking one myself once...ugh! Reminded me of when I was a child and someone gave my mother a chicken. She managed to slice its neck, then it got loose and ran around the yard, spurting blood for a bit. I felt SO sick, couldn't watch the rest...but did manage to get over it in time for dinner.
DH and I were home, just the two of us and the cats...turkey dinner was pretty good. DD lives in Houston with her husband and children and they couldn't get away this time.

This message was edited Nov 27, 2009 6:20 PM

We hosted about 70 family/friends at a firehall venue. Very nice, very roomy, very clean. Three turkeys and 2 hams, 30# of spuds. No end to good conversation. Room for the kids to run.

I prepared a huge turkey + all of the fixings, invited friends, and walked everything (and our guests) to a neighbors house since he was alone for Thanksgiving. What a surprise! All of us had a very lovely time.

My family is Canadian, so they've already celebrated - and most of the rest of our family are in DC or are meat eaters...so we love to spend a quiet day, thankful of each others company. My focus on food is always homegrown, and I grow food especially for the holiday. As vegetarians, we are pretty non-traditional in our celebration.