Thanksgiving-how do you spend it?

What are everyone traditions? Since my parents passed on, we have started going out to dinner, and I must say I love it! I was depressed about it at first cause I thought the lack of a traditional one would be sad. But now i love it and would never go back, the food is great, no dishes, and I am old enough now I don't need to be eating leftovers and added calories. Then we do come back home and watch "Planes, Trains and Automobiles", a great movie that is set during Thanksgiving-we always watch it. That is pretty much it, various people join us too. Very mixed, sometimes friends who are angry at their families etc. Seriously, it's very funny the reasons people will join us.

I usually go to my friends house. He has a huge Thanksgiving Dinner and invites loads of people.

New Zealand doesn't have thanksgiving, a lot of people ask me what I do, and they don't understand why I have to explain to them, that we didn't have the pilgrims coming over and the Native Americans helping them.

But since we are estranged from hubby's family, we don't celebrate thanksgiving with anyone, we just go out to dinner or cook a small meal with just the two of us.

I get up early to prep the turkey and get it roasting. By the time we roll out of bed it smells so good in the whole house! This year may be a bit different because Earl DJs on Wednesday nights, and the night before Thanksgiving is always a big club night. So I'm not sure if I'll go out that night or not. But we have the HUGE Thanksgiving Dinner with all the trimmings and pretty much just lounge around the rest of the day. That Friday we've been hitting the big sales in the morning and then come back and put up the Christmas tree.

I spend Thanksgiving with my family and my cats (This will be their Second Thanksgiving with us) at home having Homecooked Turkey with all the fixings (once a year splurg on not watching the calories).

Ah, reading some of these makes me long for the home cooking again, but we have fun too!

This is my first Thanksgiving with my fur guys, looking forward to that. It will be interesting to see how they like the tree too.

Mike's family invites us over- his sister, but we never go. They have a really wierd tradition of eating dinner at 8:00 a.m.! I can't even look at anything but coffee that early. So we stay home and Mike gets up about 2:00 a.m. and sticks the bird in the oven. I make the rest of the meal, then we let the cats have their turn with shredded turkey and broth, and then we go and sit on the couch and usually fall asleep. We let the turkey cook low all day and eat about 4:00 p.m. a more respectable time.

Since my parents quit having a big dinner, I've gone out for the past 18 years or so. It doesn't make much sense, to cook a huge dinner, for the two of us. We both work full-time jobs and neither of us wants to spend a holiday, in the kitchen.

This is much better: neither of us gets tired out, no mess to clean up and we aren't sickened by tons of leftovers.

The last 3 years I've hosted the Thanksgiving at
my House. I cook the Turkey, Stuffing, Dressing, Potato's
and some desserts. Usually Everyone else brings 1-2 things
like cookies or a favorite side dish.
My Family lives a couple thousand miles
away from me so it's my Husbands family that
we spend it with.

Thanksgiving is relatively new to me - I'm British and only since I've known my husband (6/7 years) have I celebrated the day. That said, I love this holiday - no gifts, no pre-defined activities, just "thanks"...

We get up early and drive out to Long Island and go to Joe's sisters house. Joe's brother's family and his Father are there also. There's a lot of kids, a lot of football and a lot of Turkey -- I'm a vegetarian so I'm always trying to come up with something that will work for my dinner with everyone. I try to avoid my "Christmas" but haven't found a Thanksgiving 'tradition' for myself food-wise.

I always take Mary (Joe's sis) a table center-piece, and try to take something for everyone to nibble on or to eat as desert. They are a BIG desert family though, there's normally 8-10 desert options even without my contribution !

Since we're not at home to celebrate, Joe always cooks a Turkey before Thanksgiving for the Cats and to eat as leftovers himself.

It's just the two of us, but we do the full day...I plan a breakfast and snacks that are compliant with CALP (an eating plan we follow) and make a full Thanksgiving meal that we usually eat at about 7 pm. I make my grandmothers stuffing recipe, and continue a tradition I began as a 20-something, of having scalloped oysters, I always make a pie, sometimes my mil's secret fruit pie of which I am the only other person who has the recipe . It's a nice day but lonely as I miss my family back East.

The cats have their own feast as well

This is the first Holiday season being away from my parents. So, I'm not sure how this is going to work out. Usually most of my family goes to my parents house & we eat all day. Then we play cards while the guys are napping & watching football. It's nothing special but it's always been that way. Plus my family is slightly different than the norm. My Dad's parents divorced 30+ years ago & it's caused nothing but problems with that side of the family. So my Grandpa Endorf always spends the holidays with us, but so does my Mom's side. So usually it's Mom, Dad, my brother, Grandpa Endorf, Grandma Gates (Mom's mom), Aunt Helen (grannies sis), Aunt Sharon (Mom's sis) & Sharon's friend Roy (he doesn't have any family around here ). So it's a very interesting mix, but it's been this way for as long as I can remember.

I'm hoping that I won't have to work on Thanksgiving, so at least I can make it home for a few hours. I'm sure I'll have to work the day after (I dread walking in to Walmart that day!).

It alternates between my mother-in-law and I on who has the meal...this year is her turn. I will be taking some food to it as well to help her out, everyone usually brings a side dish or two. We will have turkey or ham, not sure which she is having this year. I am getting hungry just thinking about it! My favorite dish is the green bean casserole since I don't get to have it at home because my husband doesn't like it.

This year were going to my SIL house

We usually go out for dinner with honeys parents and grandparents on his moms side. It is really nice because like everyone says, no leftovers to deal with(extra calories not what I need) no dishes and no worrying about cleaning the house so everyone can come over.
I usually sneak some turkey home for the kitties so they can have a Thanksgiving of sorts. then we just rest and enjoy the rest of the day or go shopping either one is fine with me. It's one of 2 days we are closed all year! I look forward to it since I basically get paid to do nothing!!!!!!!!

For the last few years we have spent Thanksgiving here at home, we usually went to my mother in laws house with the rest of the family, my husbands family is huge, but its a 6 hour drive so that means we have to stay the weekend and since we have so many animals now we just stay home. I usually cook and we eat and go to the movies with our whole family and then look at the ads in the paper for the sales the next day and then I usually get up early like 5 or so and go shopping the next day. I have learned though, Walmart is a crazy place to be the day after Thanksgiving, hope you get the day after Thanksgiving off Shell! You guys should get double time pay for that day!!!
We will probably go see Cat in the Hat this Thanksgiving, my daughter is wanting to see it and we usually try to find something the whole family can see. I'm just not in the holiday kind of mood this year for some reason, last year I had the majority of my shopping done by now and I havent done anything at all this year.

My brother who lives in Colorado come into town every year for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. This year it's Thanksgiving, so I'll be spending the majority of my time with my family this year, instead of my husbands. Our families love to stress us newlyweds out around the holidays (we've been together 6 years, married for 1) and with divorced in-laws, that makes double the places to go and people to please. We always threaten that we are going to just do what we want!!! I would love to stay at home with Joel, my husband and my kits.

Ah family, you gotta love 'em! Especially around the holidays!!

Chele

well first me, my brother & fiance, and my parents go to my dad's moms house for dinner. She usually gets it catered and we all show up around noon. Then we'll sit and watch football or whatever.

Around 3 we all head to my mother's mom's house for dinner #2, usually with my aunt and uncle. Grandma makes her own meal and is a huge control freak so at best we can bring a dessert. We usually stay there til aroun 7 or 8 then go home.

The thing about it is that there is so little family on both sides now that we have tried to have thanksgiving at my mom's house, inviting both grandmas, but they very much like to be seperate. The one year we had it at my mother's was total bliss. A few years ago when I was living with my ex, we had to go to 5 different dinners and it was crazy (both my grandma's, his mom, his dad, and his daughter's mother).

But I guess holidays are all about crazy..

This year will be the best, as my brother is now engaged, and I am fresh out of an engagement, so there will be plenty of talk about where I lack. Also he just got a great new job and I am out of employment.. I guess we take turns though because the opposite was true in the past and he had to deal with it, so I'm not going to complain tooooo much

Like Shell, this is my first holiday away from my family...

up until 6 years ago when my grandfather passed away, we used to rotate Thanksgiving between my grandma, my mom's, my aunt's, and my uncle's house (always making sure that whoever had Thanksgiving did not have Christmas that same year) but after grandpa passed, we all seperated and have our own little thanksgivings...and fight over who gets to have grandma

down here, my supervisor at work has offered to let me spend the day with her family as i'm so far from home and i'm still considering it, but it makes me a little uncomfortable as i'm going to be quitting that job soon and she knows it...

but somehow, i think that it's better than making dinner for myself and having no one to share it with...i dunno....

When I lived in Chicago a group of us singles at work without regional family would gather together and each person would cook a dish. Those were two very special Thanksgivings for me.

Last year hubby and went to a friend's house because we didn't have our son for Thanksgiving. It was fun, but a little strange.

This year we have our son and I plan on cooking a big meal at our own home.

My family of origin rarely had guests but Mom would cook up a huge meal and the whole family would watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on TV.