Gratitude: Day 15

Thanksgiving. I've had a lot of Thanksgivings in a lot of different places, with a lot of different people over the years, and the thing that always strikes me is that no one does it the same. No two houses or families ever celebrate alike.
But it seems like the tradition would be almost a carbon copy from home to home. I guess that speaks to how different families are themselves.
There are aspects I notice such as: the level of formality, the location, the amount of religion involved, the food itself, the time of day, the conversation, the number of people, who cooks and why, and the length of the meal. Thanksgiving is a meal, but its also microcosm of a family's structure and I'm happy over the years to have been able to spend it with so many varied kinds of families in three different states.

Thanksgiving thoughts

Made a couple new dishes last night. Shredded Brussel sprouts with butternut squash and apples was one. The other was kale and olive oil mashed potatoes. I think they both came out nice, (and I loved that fact that the first dish reminded me of our wedding colors) but I'm trying to imagine the palette of a fourteen year old girl. I'll eat pretty much any vegetable so sometimes it's challenging to try and plan Thanksgiving food for other people. Well, back to the drawing board...

Thanksgiving 2008

Bruce and I had Thanksgiving together this year just the two of us. It was nice to not have the stress of time schedules, and we ended up hanging out and cooking all day.

I've done cooking on Thanksgiving, but never everything from scratch. We didn't even make very many dishes, but it was quite a bit of work. Mentally more so maybe. We just don't do that much cooking these days. So, psychologically I think it's more tiring. My grandmother used to bake bread, can vegetables, do dishes, and cook stock as a daily routine. Today is just a different time.

I am most happy with the pumpkin cupcakes we made. It was nice to have something traditional and non-traditional rolled into one. And other than the icing (we didn't have any vegan cream cheese) the cupcakes were vegan. I was actually amazed at how great they tasted.