To those who do not know me, Thanksgiving is THE holiday. New Years (Lunar), Christmas and Easter are important to my family; but for me personally nothing holds a candle to Thanksgiving.
Why do I love this holiday so? The short list:
1] There is no sense of commercialization. I don’t feel like I need to buy anything other than the food I want to provide to my family and friends.
2] Following the above comment, there are no presents.
3] I love to cook and serve. This holiday is all about the meal. There are no other activities to worry about.
4] I have never felt like I needed to be concerned about the religious standpoint of a guest. If you were American then Thanksgiving works.
Every year we have at least 2 Thanksgiving parties. One on Thanksgiving for my family and my wife’s family. Head count is usually between 11 to 16. The other is two weeks before Thanksgiving on Saturday (this year that will be 11/15) Our Pre-Thanksgiving party is held for friends and neighbors and this year there will be close to 70-80 people. About 1/3 of those bodies are kids. Last year we gave the back yard to the kids. We set up a projector with some movies and a bounce house. After about an hour, 20+ kids with no parent supervision was kind of like a scene from Lord of the Flies. For the parents we set up tables and lights (the string kind that makes it look like a scene from an Italian families back yard) in the front of the house.
I love both events, but the later is the one that is dearest to me. I usually take Friday off and just cook from Friday AM to Saturday night. I am not sure which part I love more; the cooking or serving. I am pretty sure it is serving. There is something fantastic that happens when you put a lot of good people together with nothing to do but eat and talk.
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I love Thanksgiving too. I think a big part of it is all the warm memories I have of it. My parents went all out and we always had many extra guests at our table. We all chipped in to help (no matter our age) and it was an all day event. We had traditional dishes and recipes. My dad was known for “dancing” with the turkey. He always gave it a name and nationality as he was washing it it would come to life and chase us around the house. One year it was french and it tried to kiss us and pinch our butts. Maybe that was too much information about my family…
that is funny. makes us think of the commercial with the lady cleaning the turkey that flies out the window knocking out the husband.