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Thanksgiving Traditions
Posted on Nov. 21, 2006 at 7:49 AM
in Holidays and Celebrations
Thanksgiving Traditions
From the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:
Tradition:
1 a : an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom) b : a belief or story or a body of beliefs or stories relating to the past that are commonly accepted as historical though not verifiable traditions attributed to the Prophet -- J. L. Esposito>
2 : the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another without written instruction
3 : cultural continuity in social attitudes, customs, and institutions
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Tradition. Traditions. We love traditions at our house! We even have one tradition, that seems to be a part of every holiday and celebration at our house, that I really, really, really dislike!
Our Thanksgiving traditions …
Our menu rarely changes. The favorites must be served or … it will not feel like Thanksgiving! Or so my family tells me. :) The menu:
Turkey. Our turkey is roasted/steamed in either a granny ware enameled roaster or a 18 quart Nesco electric roaster. The innards are removed, the turkey rinsed and then patted dry with paper towels. Next comes the oiling. We normally use extra virgin olive oil to coat the turkey end to end but I think we will use butter this year. We often rub some herbs and spices on the turkey and once even took the extra step of pushing a spice mix under the skin. The turkey is placed in the pan, *breast down* and about two to three inches of chicken stock is added to the bottom of the pan. This causes a lovely turkey steam bath. I should say that our goal when cooking a turkey is a yummy moist turkey that is carved on the counter and placed on a platter for serving. Our turkeys are usually broken and falling off the bone at the ending of their cooking time. We do not concern ourselves with our turkey making a beautiful presentation. Taste over looks is our motto!
My dear mother in law’s should be famous Cornbread Dressing. It would not be thanksgiving at our house without this. We would give up having turkey before even considering the removal of this favorite dish from the menu.
Mashed potatoes from real potatoes, no boxed allowed.
Green beans (sometimes broccoli). Somehow, we often forget this until the last minute when everything else is just about done.
Rolls. Often those nasty white flour ones all for lack of time to make our own. Much preferred are homemade. My older daughters are setting our yeasted buttermilk bread/rolls dough to soak today! They will be cooked tomorrow. Yay for making things in advance.
Gravy. Yum. I love gravy. My mom usually makes this right before the meal. Confession … I drown most of my meal in gravy.
Veggie tray. Carrots, cucumbers and homemade ranch dip.
Black olives. A throw back to my childhood and a necessity! I love black olives.
Cheese ball and crackers. Another one of those we have to have its.
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Decorations. We have a few Thanksgiving decorations that we like to have about each year. We have a ceramic turkey with little pumpkin candle holders that I got the first year we were married. It is in soft fall colors and is supposed to look like it was quilted and stuffed. I have a turkey timer that I got from Cracker Barrel while on a vacation that must come out each year and take a place somewhere in the kitchen. Our glass pumpkin shaped containers were candle holders one year, this year they are filled with a variety of nuts still in their shells. We always try to have different gourds and pumpkins about. A large leaf shaped maple syrup jar serves as a vase and a couple small leaf shaped jars, still filled with maple syrup stand at it’s sides.
Our Thanksgiving table is graced with several leaf shaped dishes that belonged to our grandmas, they are filled with butter, olives or other little things. A dozen cute little candle pumpkins join the leaf dishes each year along with a bunch of dried leafs from a vacation we took a couple years ago. We live in a desert and have few leaves that actually turn yellow or orange when they fall. So, when our vacation happened at such a wonderful time of year and the city we were staying in was in beautiful autumn color … we collected lots of leaves to bring home of course.
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Our Thanksgiving Book. I bought a little spiral bound book intended for scrapbooking at Michaels. I printed out our Thanksiginvg recipes and mounted them in the this little books and made a decorative cover. I intended to make a list of who came to Thanksgiving dinner each year in all the extra pages but have not remembered. Maybe this year?
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Oh! I almost forgot to add my disliked tradition! Can you guess? Last minute running around like chickens with our heads cut off cleaning, picking and making everything ready! I often wonder why we did not start sooner or if we did start sooner what were we doing since there is still soooo much to do!!! :)
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Happy Thanksgiving!!!
Turkey Time : )
Posted by BChsMamaof3 on Nov. 22, 2006 at 11:27 PM - Link
I always steam/roast my turkey's to : ) but I have never cooked it breast side down. Does it make a big difference? They always come out really nice and tender. I rub them with butter like you and roast them until they start to split apart. LOL. No pretty turkeys here either. It's all about the yummy taste.
Love your turkey timer. I have one similar to it. Mine is a woven basket and then it has a hen with a half fence around her on top. I collect antique chicken and rooster salt and pepper shakers and when I saw the timer it was a must have for my collection : )
Hope you have a great Thanksgiving!!!
Blessings from your blogger friend,
BChsMamaof3
Untitled Comment
Posted by TrainingHearts on Nov. 27, 2006 at 10:41 AM - Link
Thank you for sharing your traditions!
Rachelle
Thanks for your comments and encouragement. I especially appreciate your prayers for Josiah. He's doing better.
I'm wondering if you wrote the names of the people who came to your Thanksgiving this year. That is a neat little book you made.
I hope your Thanksgiving was yummy. My dh didn't let me do the cleaning I wanted to do this year since I was still recovering from having Josiah. You wouldn't believe all of the dust still on everything (due to the construction happening in our house on our addition).
I hope you're having a good week.
Carol
LOL!
Posted by SlackerMom on Dec. 2, 2006 at 10:04 AM - Link
I always feel the same way (running around like mad at the last minute)!
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