Thanksgiving Day Past and Present

Food and family are the essential elements of Thanksgiving for me. That does not mean that they are the same every year - far from it. Some years it has 10-20 people in my parents’ house. Other years only 2 or 3 were together and myriad telephone calls were part of the day.

From a food perspective, there have been some changes over the past 40 years as well.

Past	Present
Turkey or roast	Roast
Mashed potatoes	Baked potato
Candied sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top	Baked butternut squash
Cranberry sauce or jelly	Fresh cranberry orange relish
Orange jello salad with carrot and apple slivers	-----
Yeast rolls, plain or with raisin filling	Spice muffins
Green bean/mushroom soup/fried onions casserole	Caesar salad
Iced tea	Iced tea
Mincemeat or pecan pie	Apple chunks baked with mincemeat
Pumpkin pie	Pumpkin custard
Kolache and cinnamon rolls	----

Enjoy your Thanksgiving Day!

Celebrating November 2012

How do you celebrate in November? Here are some ideas:

Going off Daylight Savings Time. Maybe this isn’t something everyone celebrates. I do because it means that the time difference between where my daughter is (in Arizona) and where I am (in Maryland) does from 3 hours to 2 hours….and communication gets a little easier.

Veterans Day. Celebrating everyone that has served in the military; more and more of us know someone that has served or is serving. Celebrating from a different perspective - it may be a three day weekend; surely one of them will be a sunny fall day to celebrate outdoors before winter weather comes.

Thanksgiving. A day full of family and food and football. That’s the tradition in my family. The food does not have to be the traditional turkey and cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. I tend to make something a little different every year although my family always wants at least one batch of pumpkin custard (nobody seems to miss the crust!)

Gift buying. There are lots of sales in November that work well for those of us that are planning ahead for December. I tend to avoid the Friday after Thanksgiving and do my shopping earlier in the month. When I find the perfect gift for someone....I celebrate….knowing that I’ll celebrate again with them when they open it during the December holidays.

Decorating for the holidays. Rather than shopping the day after Thanksgiving, I decorate my house. It’s an all day celebration of family history as we unload boxes of decorations accumulated over 40 years.