It’s the day before Thanksgiving and I am getting ready to make a pecan pie, parker house rolls and a glaze for the roasted vegetables I will prepare tomorrow.  My whole family is on the road.  My brother is driving from AL to MO and my sisters and mother are driving from OK to MO to all share Thanksgiving with my nephew.  Devin and I will spend the day with the same friends we always share Thanksgiving when we have not travelled to be with family.  We have known this family since our daughters were 1 year old.  It is great to have a place to spend Thanksgiving when you cannot be with blood family but instead with family you have chosen for yourself.

Ever since the first Thanksgiving that I could not travel to be with family, I recognized the gift of the friends Thanksgiving,  Everyone needs a place to go for Thanksgiving and that first year, I was grateful and relieved to have a place to go.  I was single with no children, so I did not want to be by myself.  I now make sure that people I know who are single or with a very small families have somewhere to go for Thanksgiving.  I really love my family and I love our holidays together.  I feared that the friends Thanksgiving could not be as much fun and the family version, but it can be great fun.  The only downside can be two fold: 1) you don’t always get the exact dishes you remember and love from your childhood and 2) you don’t get enough, if any, leftovers!

So this year, I am making a turkey breast, dressing and potatoes on Friday or Sat, so I have all the leftovers I want and I get the family recipe version of them as well.

I have a couple of leftover recipes I want to try.  Dressing waffles topped with turkey, potatoes and either cranberry sauce or gravy…..Yum    The other one is leftover thanksgiving dumplings….egg roll wrappers stuffed with leftovers, baked or pan fried and then a cranberry/soy sauce dipping sauce….another yum.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow.  I will NOT start shopping for Christmas……I do not need a good deal on some product enough to ruin what should be a treasured holiday meant to be with and celebrate family and friends.  I hate that we now require people to leave their families so the stores can open on Thanksgiving so we can be the conspicuous consumers we have become.  I don’t need that $100 savings enough or my family does not need that TV enough to destroy what has been a beautiful holiday until we decided that shopping was the reason for the season.  I know not everyone has family to be with or that they want to be with and would just as soon work, but it forces other people to work and started a trend that cannot be reversed now.   Consumerism over family, not a fan.

We do sometimes go see a movie that evening, so a little hypocrisy there….someone has to be there so I can see my movie. I will reconsider that this year and think of games my daughter can play with just 2…not as fun as with a bunch of family, but still doable and a better way to spend an evening.