I always feel most thankful during the holiday season. Thankful for the love and support my family provides me. Thankful for the laughs and memories my friends provide me. Thankful for my puppy’s unconditional love. Thankful for my health. Thankful for a job that pays my bills. Thankful for the roof over my head.
I’ll admit that my family doesn’t always get along, but I think that’s true for almost all families- if not, then please share your secrets in the comments below! Regardless, there’s something so special about gathering with the people you love… Sitting around the fire reminiscing about things that happened over the past year, playing never-ending games of Scrabble, eating good food and sipping on holiday drinks, sleeping off food comas, and simply enjoying each others company.
Ryan and I have celebrated the holidays together since we started dating a few years ago but this year is different because it’s our first Thanksgiving [and will be Christmas] as a married couple! For Thanksgiving we’re going to my momma’s house and will be joined by my younger brother and a few family friends.
This morning my momma asked me to outline our Thanksgiving menu and make the grocery list. It shouldn’t be too hard considering we to stick with the same dishes every year but my momma and I both are planners and prefer walking into the store with a list in hand rather than trying to remember everything off the top of our heads.
Every family has different traditional Thanksgiving dishes and sometimes serves multiple variations of the same dish. In honor of the upcoming holiday and my morning plans of menu planning, I thought it would be fun to do a food-focused Thanksgiving survey…
1. What time do you eat? We shoot to eat at 6PM. We start prepping the ingredients Wednesday, make the dishes Thursday morning, and relax throughout the afternoon until the turkey is done.
2. Roasted or deep fried turkey? Roasted turkey with some sort of glaze. In the past we’ve tried all different kinds of glazes and it’s usually just a mixture of whatever we have leftover from the other dishes. Cranberry-orange, pomegranate, apple cider, balsamic-mustard… I’m not sure what we’ll end up with this year.
3. Rolls or biscuits? My momma makes a loaf of cranberry-orange bread [like a tea bread] and we also have slices of warmed bread from Great Harvest Bakery.
4. Stuffing inside or outside the bird? We serve both. My momma prefers stuffing from inside the bird and I prefer it outside so half of the stuffing gets stuffed inside and the other half is used to make stuffing muffins… I love the crispy edges!
5. Green bean casserole or sauteed green beans? Green beans with sauteed balsamic shallots and turkey bacon.
6. Mashed potatoes or sweet potatoes? We make 3 different potato dishes: garlic mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes with apples and carrots, and plain baked sweet potatoes.
7. Cranberry jelly or compote? We serve both. My mom grew up with cranberry jelly so we always have to have it on the table [but no one eats it] and I also make a fresh cranberry-orange compote.
8. Apple or pumpkin pie? I’m a fan of both and we have served both in the past. This year I’m thinking of making mini pumpkin pies and we’ll also have a traditional yellow cake with chocolate frosting in honor of Ryan and my brother’s birthdays.
9. Who washes the dishes? We’ve gotten into a good routine of cleaning the dishes as we go and making an assembly line after dinner so clean-up goes pretty quickly. The worst part is transferring the carved turkey off of the cutting board into the trash… Ryan has been dubbed that duty!
10. Yay or nay to Black Friday shopping? Last year was my first time, Ryan nor I had ever been and we were interested in seeing what all of the hype was about. We had nothing in mind to buy so we decided to stroll through an electronics store and walked out with a new TV!
Side note: About an hour after Ryan set-up the TV he said that he needed to go to the hospital because he had been having pain in his lower abdominal area since after Thanksgiving dinner. After hours of waiting and testing, it turned out that he had an appendicitis and was lucky to have caught it before it burst! And we joked the night before that he was just trying to get out of doing the dishes 
2012 Thanksgiving Menu
Spinach-Artichoke Dip
Fresh Veggies
~~~
Great Harvest Bread
Cranberry-Orange Bread
~~~
Green Beans with Sauteed Balsamic Shallots and Bacon
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Carrots and Apples
Baked Sweet Potatoes
Sausage-Pear Stuffing
Roasted Turkey with Glaze
Cranberry-Orange Compote
~~~
Mini Pumpkin Pies
Classic Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting
Question: What’s your favorite Thanksgiving dish?
Question: Does your family have any Thanksgiving traditions?
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— Allison
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Sounds delicious!! I am ready to come to your house for Thanksgiving!!
Haha, thanks girly! Hope all is going well up north, I’d love to get up there soon
awwwm, enjoy it! first christmas together as a married couple is priceless! minus the family spats. LOL!
We actually moved in together last fall so we had our first Christmas together but this year will be the first as a married couple and with a puppy- hopefully he doesn’t attack the tree!
I love the new site!! I’m so glad to finally be back in the blog world. When it brought me to your new site, I was a bit confused. lol! Looks great!
Your thanksgiving menu looks awesome! I remember our first married Thanksgiving and Christmas. Like Lindsay said, it is priceless!! All of our “traditions” are going out the window this year!!! I’m kind of sad.
Thank youuu, you’re in the right place! I’m still getting used to it too and figuring out all the new gizmos and whizmos in the background like unspamming your comment, hehe
And I’m looking forward to our first holidays as a married couple! We lived together last Christmas but this year we have a puppy and I’m hoping he doesn’t go after our tree!
Yellow cake with chocolate frosting is my fav! Growing up, that was my usual request every year for my birthday. So stinkin’ good!
It’s what my momma has always made for any of our birthdays since I can remember! Such a classic, so good
cool survey! i love thanksgiving but sadly with being celiac I can’t eat much. I adore the turkey and then usually make some veggie dishes I can eat. I do love this holiday though for all the family time
Eek, yeah… I was GF for 4 months over the summer and would have been be super bummed not to have stuffing [my fave] :/ I think that’s our only dish that isn’t GF now that I think about it!
my favorite thanksgiving dish is this sweet potato casserole that my mom makes with marshmallows and brown sugar melted on top. yummmm. We don’t really have any traditions thanksgiving day but we always see a movie the day after
Mmm, sweet potatoes
I actually don’t think I’ve ever had that style of sweet potatoes! We have plain baked sweets and my momma makes a casserole using sweet potatoes, apples, and carrots- purees them all together with some brown sugar- it tastes like pie filling!
Guuurl, you have one amazing meal ahead of you! I’m planning on making mini pies this year as well; either pecan or pumpkin…or maybe both (if time permits)!
My favorite Thanksgiving dish is usually sweet potato-based, however I also LOVE roasted Brussels sprouts. This year I’m planning on making a number of new dishes, and I’m excited about every single one of them. Hopefully they’ll be good enough to make second appearances next year!
One of my favorite Thanksgiving traditions is game time after we eat. When I was younger, my family would play “sardines,” which is an alternative version of hide-and-go-seek. One person hides, all lights are turned off, and everyone crawls on the floor searching for the hidden person. If you find the person, you have to be quiet and hide with them…the idea is to not be the last person to find the hidden person; if you are, you’re the next hider. It’s so so much fun!
Yum, I hope you share all of your dishes, I bet they’ll be delic! If I made a batch of Brussels sprouts I think I’d be the only one eating them… More for me
That makes me wish we could gather a bunch of DC bloggers and have a Blendsgiving- everyone could make a dish that they would be the only one eating at their family feast! And that game sounds fabulous- I’m picturing my family all crawling around on the group haha!
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday–I can’t wait. I love the no-hurry-sit-and-relax feeling of the whole day. I don’t know that I could pinpoint one favorite dish. It’s really the culmination of it all that makes it special and delicious.
Looks like you guys have an incredible menu–have fun!
Thanks! I definitely agree that spending all day surrounded by family, friends, and good food is one of the best kind of days