WE are traveling to North Carolina to visit family... (Birol..my aunt will be there from Turkey!! )
Great thread, thanks. We'll be home on Thanksgiving. My son is coming on Tuesday and we'll have the big meal then. DD, GKs will be gone to the mountains for their own Thanksgiving.
We normally take turns every year, so one person never gets stuck with the holidays, and this year would have been the time we would go to DS's house, but he and DDIL have been dealing with a lot lately, death of her father, also preparing to move her younger sister into their home for a while, so DD number 2 has offered to take his turn for him this year. Just another thing to be thankful for, a family that is always there for one another.
T
;)
We will be going to my DM house. We do Thanksgiving there and Christmas at my house. :) For Easter we go camping. :D It is usually the first trip of the year for us.
It is so nice to read about family time you guys are all enjoying ..... None of our religious days are celebrated here (unfortunately and to be expected ). Even if they were, we have no family over here to enjoy those days with, or any real close friends.
You all be good now and enjoy the good days ! And eat a bite of a delicious yummy Turkey for me and the rest of the family :S
Birol, the old saying goes "When in Rome do as the Romans do" applies to you too!!! Thanksgiving is not a religous holiday (as such), though it might have some religious meaning to some. It's really just a way of celebrating the Harvest each fall. I think Canada has a slightly different version of Thanksgiving, but believe it's pretty much all the same. Use the Holiday with your own family for a get-together and a feast like the rest of us do. Soon your kids will be grown and moved on, and this is a great way to convince them to come home and visit once in a while!!! :D
Home, as always. Due to our jobs, Thanksgiving is the only holiday we know for sure we will have "off" every year so we celebrate this one pretty good. Not sure yet how many we have coming but I'm headed over to the church in the morning to get 4 large tables and 16 folding chairs. Got a 20 lb. turkey and a large ham. Not sure yet but may add another ham. Will decide Wednesday. Weather looks like it's going to be great and we are having dinner in the garage. More room and we don't have to worry about any mess. If weather decides to get chilly, SIL has a kerosene heater he can bring over. Think we have it all planned out and it should be a great day! Hope yours is the same!
We are going camping right here in Jacksonville, Just 45 min from home! We are headed for Huguenot Memorial Park. Got a site right on the beach. We are really going to be doing Thanksgiving right, I'd say, as there are no hook ups and we'll be roughing it like the pilgrims did! Well, not quite but close!
Oh my gosh! We're celebrating Thanksgiving AND Christmas at our house! :eek:
My mom-in-law has Jury duty the day before Thanksgiving. Who in thier right mind would put a woman on jury duty then? Men, fine - they usually just eat and enjoy. But (typically) woman are cooking and cleaning up the rest of the day. I was looking forward to leaving it up to someone else this year! Well, at least we get the leftovers :D
Heading to Arkansas to see the in-laws! :D
As long as we don't come down with this crud DD just recovered from. :(
-Teri
Oh yes, forgot to mention. We are hooking up to electricity and staying in the pop-up. What better way to get time away when we need it, plus not impose on relatives! Now as long as we don't freeze...
Quote from: Gone-CampingBirol, the old saying goes "When in Rome do as the Romans do" applies to you too!!! Thanksgiving is not a religous holiday (as such), though it might have some religious meaning to some. It's really just a way of celebrating the Harvest each fall. I think Canada has a slightly different version of Thanksgiving, but believe it's pretty much all the same. Use the Holiday with your own family for a get-together and a feast like the rest of us do. Soon your kids will be grown and moved on, and this is a great way to convince them to come home and visit once in a while!!! :D
Well, we actually do that Cliff (Not this year though, too many thinks going on). We get aTurkey, cook it and feast on it for a week :) They ARE big after all :) We also do not celebrate the spirit of Christmas but, we have a Christmas tree, which we light up pretty early, it is a festive time for the children, and all of friends are having fun, so we don't deprive them of the fun part of it. They also get to open their new year gifts when their school goes off, which is Christmas, I am sure God will understand, our religion is based on moderation and tolerance anyways, at least the way we interpret it. Oh yeah, we also put lights around the roof and windows too, I like doing that, it looks beautiful and breaks the monotony of a long winter.
jpreiser
Traveling to Front Royal for the Holiday weekend. Dinner is at the Strasberg Hotel in Strasberg Va.
Wow! That's really going to be some kind of Thanksgiving! I just found out that DD will be here tomorrow after all, for a big lunch. She will be gone on Thursday, so we will do the feast tomorrow. I cleaned house today, so I only have to cook tomorrow morning.
We have a great trip planned! Our family is out on the other coast so we get to camp! We are going to leave after the kids get out of school on Wednesday and go to San Simeon SP, Thanksgiving Dinner there on Thursday and tour the Hearst Castle on Friday. On Friday we will follow the Pacific Coast Highway up to Monterey were will will finish out the weekend. We are planning on seeing the aquarium unless the Redwoods call to strongly!
Christmas we get to fly home for the Holidays :J :J
My family is SO messed up on the holidays. Everyone gets their feathers ruffled and there is always so much tension. I have 5 brothers and I'm the only girl. One brother lives in France and won't be home for the holiday. Another brother is not married and just goes where ever, when ever. I do whatever the family (my parents) want to do. One brother wanted to have Thanksgiving dinner at his house this year. The last two brothers boycotted that dinner and won't be there, so my mother was going to have dinner at her house on Thursday so they would come (neutral territory). She bought a bird and all the food and THEN those two brothers called and said they are having dinner together... ALONE and would she mind having dinner at her house on Friday. All this AFTER we tell the brother that wanted to have dinner on Thursday that we would rather do it at mom's!
:confused: Confused yet!? Tell me about it!
I'm going to my brother's house with my parents and single brother on Thursday. Two of my brothers will be having their own dinner on Thursday and then we all go to my mother's house on Friday. I REALLY hope I don't kill my two SELFISH brothers causing all this grief for my parents!! The way I look at it is that my parents are in their 70's and will not be with us forever so I want to enjoy them and have them enjoy my family as much as possible. My brothers and I will have a whole lifetime after my parents are gone to ignore each other.
Man, I LOVE the holidays!!! :mad: :( :rolleyes:
I always do the Thanksgiving feast at my house. My family all are 6 - 8 hours away and rarely get to make the trip, but DH's family is only about an hour and a half away so they always come down. There are usually around 10 of us. I love to cook so I really enjoy putting it all together. It's a little stressful but it's also a lot of fun.
The main meal consists of Turkey, Ham, Cornbread and Sausage Stuffing, Gravy, Mashed Potatoes, Sweet Potato Casserole, Broccoli/Corn casserole, Peas, Cranberry Sauce, Fruit Salad, Rolls, with Banana Pudding, Pumpkin Cheese Cake, and Pumpkin Pie for dessert.
The nicest part of having it at my own house, is once dinner is over, I don't have to get up to drive anywhere...I can flop and stay there until I feel comfortable enough to move again! :)
We, and the rest of our family, will be at my middle sisters house for the day. All those kids and noise on a day off.........:( :rolleyes: ;)
campingboaters, I know exactly what you are talking about, but let your two brothers be.....as my grandfather used to say when certain ones could not come for family gatherings: "That just leaves more for the rest of us." Well, he came through the days of rationing, the drpression and putting food on the table during hard times. So he would know. Grandpa died in 1983 at age 83. I enjoyed his wit and wisdom. One of his sayings was also "If I were doing any better, it would cost me too much.....or it would be too expensive." So just enjoy being with your parents and really, really enjoy yourself. Don't even worry about the brothers. Don't even bother to try to rub it in with them that they should be there. Apparently everyone tried and it didn't work, so just stop and let them be. One day they will wish they had those memories with the parents. You will have your memories. I encourage you to enjoy yourself immensely and be happy with where you are and what you are doing. Your mother could always tell the brothers that "I will be doing something different this year, since you cannot come on Thursday." It is the brothers who seem to be controlling everything and making the holidays stressful. She could just put the bird in the freezer and save till Christmas.
We had ours on Tuesday at Noon because everyone was going other places on Thursday. That worked fine for me. I am flexible and will just enjoy Thursday with my significant other.
I used to get bent out of shape on every holiday because nothing could get decided or agreed upon. I opted to have everything on Dec 24 so the rest could enjoy their Dec 25. If some can't make it, I don't lose sleep over it....I still enjoy doing what I want to do.
Campingboaters,
Do what B-Flat said .... Just ignore the slightly self centered, probably too important to be bothered by their parents wishes part of your family. GO have a great day with your parents. Let everyone else be ..... You will have the memories and the satisfaction that you were where you were supposed to be.
B-Flat & Birol,
I hear what you all are saying and I am going to have a nice holiday despite my selfish brothers -- if it kills me! :D This whole mess is really not about them being there or not, it's about the games they are playing with my mom and I which made us cancel with my one brother and then have to ask to come for dinner again... And you are right, I will have my memories with my parents and they will be left with regrets. It'll serve them right!
Now, let's eat some TURKEY and PIE! :J
It's coastal camping near Santa Cruz for us.
I'll be cooking the huge meal at home with a little help from DH. My son is home from college, the two girls and their families are coming and my mother in law is coming. I'll get up EARLY and get the big bird stuffed and in the oven, put the ham in to cook a little later, hopefully, most of the sides should be done tonight and will just have to be heated through. The kids will all start coming around noon;, then we'll stuff ourselves silly with appetizers, the meal, and dessert, enjoy everyone being together, then DH and I will flop on the couch after everyone goes home! :>
this will be an entirely new experience for us--no kids. so we are going to have a very different Thanksgiving Day this year. First of all, neither of us is nuts about turkey so, by special request from Billy, our main dish will be SLTrawick's Philadelphia Cream Cheese Chicken over broad noodles. There WILL BE PIE, though. (apple and pumpkin custard) And we are going to pack it all up and take it to a place we have in the mountains and have a picnic lunch beside a pretty little spring.. :p
And, like the rest of you, we will be giving thanks for our many blessings.
That sounds great NightOwl. We did our Thanksgiving yesterday with my children and BF's DD, so Thursday it will just be the two of us. I have no real plans but now that you mentioned the cream cheese chicken and broad noodles I may have to get out the crock pot.
We will be on the road, and not camping.
My parents live in Lawton, OK. My Mom has just moved into an assisted living place and we will be going to bring back all the stuff that she does not need anymore. This includes the handicapped conversion van that my Dad does not need anymore. I have no idea where we will put everything. It seems that my sister had gotten what she wanted and packed the rest of everything else for me to deal with. My house is so crowded as it is, so more junk is not what I need.
We will drop off the girls (wife's nieces) at their mothers, in Springfield, MO. for a visit and the rest of us will then head for Lawton.
This will be the first long trip in our new Suburban, so it will be interesting to see how everyone gets along in cramped spaces. Some of you might remember that we sold our conversion van to get the 'burb.
Now I get another conversion van with a wheelchair lift installed. So, if anyone knows of someone who need this type of vehicle, let me know.
Maybe Christmas will be quite and peaceful this year.....