Thanksgiving Traditions

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I was in Chicago last weekend (Oh how I love that city!) and...well, excuses excuses...somehow it's taken until now to post again. But the ocean waves once again...

When I was a girl, I used to watch the Brady Bunch and assume that the show depicted a fairly accurate picture of what non-Chinese, traditional families did in the U.S.. And then holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas would come around and I would wonder about what other families did. Years later, even after I got over my Brady Bunch = functional typical caucasian "American" family delusion, I'm still fascinated by families' holiday traditions. The questions for today, in predictable ocean fashion, are the following: how did you grow up celebrating Thanksgiving? How do you and your family celebrate Thanksgiving? What traditions would you want to keep for the future? What traditions have would you want to adopt?

To answer my own questions...

Growing up...
In our family, way back in the day, we went to one of my uncle and aunt's house for Thanksgiving. We would have an enormous meal for lunch that included all the "typical" American foods--turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, etc.. But most of the adults in the family still preferred Chinese food so two or three hours after being stuffed silly with a full-blown American Thanksgiving meal and the younger male cousins were entertained by Ninetendo games, the adults and kids like me with more "sophisticated" palates (HA!) would then sit down again to eat an entire Chinese & Taiwanese meal. Yes, two large holidays meals within three hours--goal of the afternoon was to keep it all down. It was one of the most glutenous holidays we celebrated, mostlybecause we usually stuck to just one cultural food group for the rest of the holidays. Second to Chinese New Year (hey, what can I say, as a kid you enjoy receiving $$...actually, as an adult I like $$ as well...), it was one of my favorite holidays as a kiddo. For better or worse, years later, the women in the family acculturated at a faster rate than the men in the family, creating marital discord and many of the nuclear families disbanded such that these family gatherings at Thanksgiving have stopped... Last year, I tried resurrecting the tradition with what's left of the families and cooked for 14... twas a bit of a dicey experience with half the clan disliking squash products, the other half being lactose intolerant, most of the folks not liking dessert, and the rest of the clan thrown across the states... but hey, A for effort and level of exhaustion.


As an adult...
In the last few years, I've started making it a tradition to cook and bake at least one new dish or dessert at Thanksgiving. I've enjoyed using the holiday as an excuse to buy yummy foods I wouldn't usually buy and taking the time to cook things I've always wanted to try... I figure it's a good way for me to build up a menu I can use for someday when I own a real home and host tday dinners (I hope). This year's adventure includes an herbed cheesy polenta ring with roasted autumn vegetables. I'm excited.

As for adopting other traditions, my friend Emily's family hosts a Thanksgiving dinner on the Friday after Thanksgivng. I absolutely love the idea. Friends end up not having conflicts, people can be with the in-laws on Thursday, the hosts have Thursday to cook... I have a stinking suspicion that I will be adopting this tradition...someday...when I own a home that's large enough to host a large gathering and there are plenty of people who will be in town so that I can have such a mostly-friends dinner. (Ah yes, I may have given up on the genetic clan for providing me with the audience I'd like...I mean, c'mon people, I want to make foods with cheese, and squash, and chocolate and have people actually enjoy such foods! :p)

Ok, someone else share and inspire me with new ideas for my someday tday dinners!