25
Nov

Popular culture, TV commercials, and ad banners might have reduced Thanksgiving to Black Friday Eve, but hubby and I steadfastly held down the Thanksgiving tradition on our own this past Thanksgiving day.

We had waited, and waited, but no one invited us over this Thanksgiving, so, we conspired to roast our own turkey, and prepare the traditional feast by ourselves.

Roasting our first turkey


Truth be told, I never liked the turkey, stuffing, sweet potato, mashed potato, pumpkin pie, and even worse is the cranberry jelly. The only redeeming part of the Thanksgiving dinner for me is the ham and Green Bean Casserole. But I have ample reason for agreeing to labor all day for a meal I don’t much like to eat.

Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, we join my husband’s family for one or both of the holidays. My parents don’t celebrate Thanksgiving at all, and their idea of a Christmas celebration is to eat more Chinese food. So, it dawned on me, that if we don’t roast a bird for this major holiday, someday, our children will not come home and celebrate Thanksgiving with us! So, we’d better get cracking on this family tradition.

The best part of the Thanksgiving feast is that the menu is all set. I don’t have to think about what to make. The challenge was finding a small turkey, I dug through two large bins at a Safeway store, and the smallest bird I could find was a 12.71 pound-er. That is one huge turkey for 2 adults and 2 kids. Of course, I had to get a ham too, so I could have something I like to eat on our Thanksgiving.

I brined our turkey overnight in chicken stock, salt, sugar, vinegar, thyme, rosemary, and oregano.

On Thanksgiving day, I got up at 9AM to prepare the turkey for roasting. The kids watched me wrestling with the bird with much excitement, then joined me in stuffing the bird, and buttering it all over.

Butter Ball

My kids LOVE butter, so all the buttering gave them a good feeling about this turkey.

Once the turkey was safely in the oven, I prepared snacks.

Thanksgiving Party trays

We decided that the Thanksgiving dinner would be extra special if it is our only meal of the day. So, throughout the day, we snacked on our finger foods, listened to holiday music, played wii, giggled, and prepared food together.

Exactly an hour behind schedule, our dinner was ready at 5PM.

Turkey is ready!

We gave thanks, and ate many rounds of turkey, ham, stuffing, mashed potatos, green bean casserole, broccoli salad, gravy, bread and butter, and dessert.

Our Thanksgiving Dinner


Our first turkey was grand, and it turned out nice and juicy.

Juicy!


We proclaimed our first Thanksgiving Family tradition a huge success.

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Category: Parents
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