Thanksgiving: Traditions IN, Caring About Lumps: OUT

Thanksgiving is definitely one of my favorite holidays. In my family, “Thanks” is the big one—our entire extended family, out to third cousins, gets together for a huge reunion / party. It’s a wonderful, multigenerational occasion for bonding. Plus it’s tons of fun. After the feast, we collectively put on an amateur Vaudeville show (emphasis on amateur), with the same “acts” performed each year, always to raucous applause and laughter. My grandmother’s “Hello Dolly” and my uncle’s Sinatra impression are traditions as rich and meaningful to our family as certain recipes or heirloom dishes are to other families’ traditions.
For Michelle, the Sales Director at NW Kids, Thanksgiving is incomplete without her grandmother’s cranberry Jell-o mold. She simply cannot have Thanksgiving without it. Her parents and in-laws, meanwhile, don’t share this fondness and each insists on serving their preferred cranberry sauce. And although four varieties might seem excessive, the running joke has become part of their tradition.
For our family, we have marked each year with new additions—through marriage or birth, our family has enjoyed an abundance of blessings. So many in fact, that we have outgrown our holiday tables at my grandmother’s house and some years aren’t able to get the full crew together in one place. This year is one such year. We won’t be making the trek “over the river and through the woods" and instead I will play hostess to my in-laws from California.
As this will be my first time preparing a Thanksgiving meal for “adults,” this culinary adventure fills me with some trepidation. To say that I am not a chef is an understatement (see page 19 for insight on how I plan to cheat a little). But if my family’s tradition has taught me anything, it’s that “Thanks” is not about the gravy or whether the potatoes have lumps. It’s about so much more.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!