I hope everyone has a great day! Hugs, Tracey
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmeow-cat.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2009%2F11%2Fcat-wants-turkey.jpg&hash=01e2cf70ef77842a9c70b4f81791572f9e1e3353)
might be light meal for me, not sure how it's planned today
I'm having a light meal perfect for kitty cats: tuna melts!
Happy thanksgobbleday everyone!
I always hide down low on Thanksgiving. Shows the night before are always weird if they happen, I can't recall ever having a gig on T-Day except to do the decorations in malls, but the day after T-Day is a huge nightclub night. (Everyone is home, they've done the family thing, done the shopping thing, are now ready to go somewhere, anywhere were the rest of the family is not). So I'm just resting, we'll cook and all that. 9ers on late game so I'll watch that (because it is SF and all), and I have an all-night (what other kind are there really?) rave on Friday...
Doesn't it feel a bit odd having a major feast day quite close to Christmas? I have never liked turkey, I have been telling my mother that in Denmark they buy a large salmon for Christmas day, but she doesn't listen and we get turkey that is either sawdust dry if it is a good quality turkey, or tasteless and rubbery if it is factory farmed.
What is the traditional Thanks Giving pudding? Is there one? Do people get drunk on this day like the English do on 'xmas day?*
* We Scots like to get drunk on New year's eve. Christmas is for children is our attitude.
Here in Scotland we have a feast day coming up - if you are a Christian that is, or a Groundskeeper Willie super-patriot- can you tell me what this 'celebration' is?
Pudding on your side of the pond is just a general reference to desert, I believe? Pudding here is its own thing, what you may call custard. But to your question, pies are traditional here, my favourites being squash, pumpkin, or sweet potato pie. Hopefully, all three! Hugs, Tracey
Edit: Dessert, not desert! Not even spellcheck saves you on that one, folks!
Here is a Christmas pudding:
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fenglishtap.com%2Fmedia_library%2Fimages%2Ffood%2Fchristmas_pudding.jpg&hash=804f3b172ee6169e977ade23cf6841cda554121a)
It looks good! Is that holly on top of it? Also, is that what you were telling us you were going to make a while back? Hugs, Tracey
You of coarse know about the turkey, but here are a few pic.s of typical thanksgiving dinner spreads
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fbeautygirlsmom.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2010%2F11%2FGTG_thanksgiving-dinner_lg.jpg&hash=3208aa24111b25fea3c85bc0ca1bbcdee4daef8e)
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jannorris.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2010%2F10%2Fthanksgiving-meal.jpg&hash=d7d643389240be3c1d6206f61ae083a6144976bd)
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sheknows.com%2Farticles%2Fthanksgiving-dinner-spread.jpg&hash=80dfafbcaf327d93f1a1004af83b0e5002c8c04f)
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fpauldavidwilliams.files.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F11%2Fthanksgiving-dinner.jpg&hash=c45fa315f7b1b470ac8ee53592db390828610c5d)
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.niffgurd.com%2Ffamily%2Fheritage%2F2003%2Fnovember%2Fthanksgiving%2Fimages%2Fdsc02093.jpg&hash=129e40f96b0b26836311aa2b5d4734469da8086c)
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi-cdn.apartmenttherapy.com%2Fuimages%2Fkitchen%2F2009-11-11-Desserts.jpg&hash=1cede1ac5129f66c84e5058b57103f5ef56ffe6e)
Looks nice.
I am going to be making a Christmas cake:
(https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQtnGJK9wZLPXrq-jDjRuawXH_RyK2JdZS-jgUWhXnmvno3tZnhfQ)
Or something like this:
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fd37xeixy3leayx.cloudfront.net%2Fimages%2Frecipes%2F287%2F287_1_296.jpg&hash=1a27f519c1af39a52925ea8126163c1683dfc578)
I'm getting hungry again! Holidays sure are tough on the figure. Hugs, Tracey
Another tradition during Thanksgiving and Christmas as well is people of all walks of life, rich and poor come together to donate their time and/or money to provide a holiday meal to the less fortunate
City centers, churches and others are filled with folks who would not otherwise have a holiday dinner... I can think of nothing that will lift the spirits like serving up the goods to another :)
Quote from: V M on November 28, 2011, 09:14:18 PM
Another tradition during Thanksgiving and Christmas as well is people of all walks of life, rich and poor come together to donate their time and/or money to provide a holiday meal to the less fortunate
City centers, churches and others are filled with folks who would not otherwise have a holiday dinner... I can think of nothing that will lift the spirits like serving up the goods to another :)
Lol I would not do this. I donate goods and do volunteer work all the time, and I share my food stamps with homeless people who want snacks, etc, but Thanksgiving and Christmas are the time of year when I start being way too fail at my own life to help anyone else. It's when heating bills are high, too, and when extra food and indoor trees and other weird things have to get bought. I don't understand why there are so many charity drives and benefit auctions and such in November and December rather than May and June, when bills are lower and life is calmer.
That said, I do adore the rituals of the holidays. I never celebrated them until I had a kid. Christmas lights are my favorite.
Quote from: Happy Girl! on November 28, 2011, 05:01:42 PM
Here in Scotland we have a feast day coming up - if you are a Christian that is, or a Groundskeeper Willie super-patriot- can you tell me what this 'celebration' is?
That would be St Andrews, would it not?
Ye ken.
Christmas, particularly in American prior to the industrial age (1880's on) was a quite family deal. So it's never seemed a conflict. For half of the country at the time the weather sucks, it's snow and ice, and in the other half it's raining, so not good for traveling. Good to stay home. And with the heavy (HEAVY) influence of the more Puritan strains of Protestant thought, the notion of a 'plain-church' and all that, the huge Catholic-type Xmas was never a big deal in the 18th and most of the 19th Century. (On the East Coast, the Spanish out West had other thoughts)
Thanksgiving is just the American version of the harvest fest - a pretty common celebration in most cultures. We're just all so far from that farm cycle that we forget it, though the cornucopia/horn-O-plenty is a pretty glaring reminder. It was celebrated in a lot of places, and the Spanish claim to have had the first one, long in advance of Plymouth. It was only during and after the Civil War that it was made a real national holiday (a secular holy day, much as the Fourth of July is) as a way to unite the divided nation.
And, odd though it sounds, it's not all that weird to have it so close to Xmas, because (I know that Europeans and even lots of Americans will find it hard to believe) that not everyone does Xmas, and in some places it's actually a pretty low-key holiday. In Chinatown in SF it's just another day, you stroll through there and it's like walking in and out of time. You see a few decorations in SF, but nothing like downtown Chicago or NYC this time of year. But everyone does Thanksgiving because it doesn't have that religious stuff piled on top of it. Even Chinatown shuts down for Thanksgiving because it is the American day off, and though it's another world, it's still the US.
Plus its so simple, it's pretty much food, friends/family, and football.
And because food, friends/family, and football is a pretty basic deal, it's hard to screw up, it's always the Lions so it almost never matters, and because it's so basic it's far less 'ritual' than Xmas gets. So you don't have everyone bummed out about diminished expectations, how much they are now in debt, if they 'really' liked the gift and all that other slushy stuff that makes otherwise normal people have huge inter-personal crisis-meltdowns in the middle of eggnog time. It lacks all that emotional baggage that makes sane people skip Xmas entirely and go to a resort,* or out hiking, or anything else really.
And, like I said, Xmas is far from universal here, there is a whole Xmas / Hanukkah / Kwanzaa / some Islamic deal / Festivus (for the rest of us) / and in a lot of places in the American West the the Procession Tradition - La Posadas, where the ninth and final procession, Buena Noche, is Christmas Eve and end in a huge tamale party, and while not everyone, not all Mexicans do the processions, everyone in Cali is down with the tamale party / and I'm sure I'm forgetting something like Solstice - so (and this pisses a hella lot of people off of late) in America it's not "Merry Christmas" as much as it's 'Happy Holidays for whatever you're celebrating'.
* - it always surprises me the number of people who feel they are 'forced' to do Xmas, like there is no other option, when any check of resorts will not only tell you they are booked solid over Xmas, but at the highest rates they charge all year.
Quote* - it always surprises me the number of people who feel they are 'forced' to do Xmas, like there is no other option, when any check of resorts will not only tell you they are booked solid over Xmas, but at the highest rates they charge all year.
If you have children and you're in most any community in the states, you are kinda forced to do christmas.
I guess my people are just more of a resort people. But my dad worked commercial aviation and he was working Xmas (and could meet up with us no matter where we were), so we spent a bunch of Xmas up in Tahoe skiing, I spent one camping in Death Valley (and 3 of the most awesome NYE there too) and one on the shores of Waikiki Beach when I was growing up. My kids had Xmas at two different ski resorts, we were camping on the rim of the Grand Canyon and singing carols with the waitresses and drivers while having 'turkey with all the trimmins' in a truck stop outside of Flagstaff one year, camping on Cape Blas another year. Some at home, some at my parents. Pretty much once they know that there is no Santa Claus it doesn't matter where you do it. Christmas is not site specific.
I guess I always figured they were my kids, I could do with them as I pleased so long as I didn't break them.
Oh. I miss the whole thanksgiving atmosphere, being born out of usa.
But i give best wishes to everyone.
Quote from: tekla on November 29, 2011, 11:00:35 AM
I guess my people are just more of a resort people. But my dad worked commercial aviation and he was working Xmas (and could meet up with us no matter where we were), so we spent a bunch of Xmas up in Tahoe skiing, I spent one camping in Death Valley (and 3 of the most awesome NYE there too) and one on the shores of Waikiki Beach when I was growing up. My kids had Xmas at two different ski resorts, we were camping on the rim of the Grand Canyon and singing carols with the waitresses and drivers while having 'turkey with all the trimmins' in a truck stop outside of Flagstaff one year, camping on Cape Blas another year. Some at home, some at my parents. Pretty much once they know that there is no Santa Claus it doesn't matter where you do it. Christmas is not site specific.
I guess I always figured they were my kids, I could do with them as I pleased so long as I didn't break them.
I never said anything about the site of the holidays. So...I've been deeply in poverty most of my life. There's not really a delicate way to contrast that with what you described. We've spent some christmases homeless. Before I had my daughter I hitchhiked a lot, and I've always moved around a lot, so no I don't have any attachment to the idea of converging on a particular place for celebrating.
But I don't make my daughter avoid christmas for the same reason I don't try to force her to be vegan or an atheist. Lol I'd feel so mean. xD
Quote from: V M on November 28, 2011, 09:14:18 PM
Another tradition during Thanksgiving and Christmas as well is people of all walks of life, rich and poor come together to donate their time and/or money to provide a holiday meal to the less fortunate
City centers, churches and others are filled with folks who would not otherwise have a holiday dinner... I can think of nothing that will lift the spirits like serving up the goods to another :)
This post got me examining my life, and I realized I contribute volunteer work but I tend to try to keep my daughter out of it. She's got difficulties, but she's not incapacitated or anything. So I signed us both up for a shift at the food bank, and if it goes well we'll try to do it again in the future. They said that sorting and packaging the bulk food can be done by kids as young as 6.