Turkey Turkey Turkey
Thanksgiving is hands down
my favorite holiday. What’s not to like? There is food, alcohol, and football. Those right there are three out of the four basic things needed to make this small cog a happy boy. The fourth one is sex, but really, sex is pretty much off the table after stuffing myself into a food coma.
Oh yea, and being thankful for things. Of course, I am thankful for my family who is spread all across North America. From Virginia to Florida to Texas to Iowa to Alberta to British Columbia. I’m also thankful for some of the fond memories I had as a child celebrating Thanksgiving. We would load up and drive over to my Nanny and Papaw’s place where all the cousins, some of which I hadn’t seen all year, would play outside until it was time to eat. Then we’d chow down on turkey, ham, deviled eggs, and dressing/stuffing.
In the south most families ate dressing. Dressing, for those who haven’t heard of it, is a cornbread based dish that is cooked externally from the turkey. Stuffing is wheat bread based and, as the name implies, cooked in the turkey. It was sacrilege in my family to even mention stuffing, much less show a preference for it. I stuck to those guns for most of my life until I met my wife, who is Canadian. They do stuffing, and our first Thanksgiving 
together she tied me down and stuffed some of that stuffing down my gullet. I’ve been addicted to it ever since. She makes THE BEST stuffing in the world. I now have family members that won’t even talk to me because I crossed over to the stuffing dark side.
Then there was dessert. We had the traditional pumpkin and pecan pie but my favorite as a kid (along with all my cousins) were my Nanny’s individual chocolate pies. She baked them in muffin tins with a flaky crust, chocolate filling, and a fluffy meringue topping. It was like biting in to a fluffy cloud filled with dark pleasure. So good.
A few years ago I documented our Thanksgiving on Facebook with a pictorial play by play. Check it out.
Before
After
Way after!
I caught hell the first time for posting this. Probably going to catch even more now. If you think I would have learned by now then you must be new here.
One of our more recent Thanksgiving traditions is to repeatedly review the below video throughout the week. We discovered this gem several years ago while watching a special on game shows funniest moments. Next to screaming goats, it is one of my favorite videos, and it makes me chuckle every time I watch it. Most apropos for this time of the year.
One other thing I am thankful for this year. Getting to know some fellow bloggers who have made me feel most welcome to the community. Whether you prefer stuffing, dressing, or neither, I hope you all have a wonderful Turkey Turkey Turkey Day!
8 thoughts on “Turkey Turkey Turkey”
Ha. Since I hate anything wet and bready, it’s dressing all the way. Stuffing is wet from turkey discharge. No me gusta.
I love Turkey Man! Thanks for sharing that. Our Thanksgivings are fantastic. We cook and all of 6 grown kids come, with anyone they want to bring. We play games and laugh our asses off. Perfect Day.
I will be introducing the family to Molkky this year and they will each get a set to take home 🙂
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Yea, the games are another great part. We really don’t have any friends that live close by that like to play games so we always take advantage of that when family is around for the holidays.
Growing up, the meal was always served at 4 in the afternoon. So you were either already not hungry because you’d been eating deviled eggs and crudite all day, or you were STARVING from smelling the good smells all day and then you STUFFED yourself.
Never heard the difference between stuffing and dressing, growing up in the South. It was always Pepperidge Farms wheat-based, and both stuffed and baked unstuffed, separately (we always had a houseful, so LOTS of food). I hated Thanksgiving and stuffing/dressing, both, growing up.
First marriage, hubby and I declared OUR HOME as host home for Thanksgiving, as both sets of parents lived equidistant from us but not each other, as well as EATING by 1 p.m. at the absolute LATEST. If you didn’t see us, it’s because you didn’t come over. By the third year, hubby’s mom finally learned she no longer had to prepare anything for Thanksgiving, ever again. Yes, it took her three years to get it. I think I may also have swayed most of the family towards lunchtime, as well, because you don’t get so hungry you stuff yourself; you don’t have to “leave room” for dessert; when you get hungry again later, there’s plenty still just waiting to be consumed!
Current marriage is just me and hubby; all family lives way too far away, and the first T-Day “orphans” festivities we attended were filled with pretty yucky versions of what we thought we knew (like MAYO as a prime ingredient in mashed taters, EW!)… so he does a turkey breast and some fixin’s in the crockpot. I convinced him to also get drumsticks, so we’ll probably just cook up half the breast and ONE drumstick, plus fixin’s, share all that, and then do it again when the crockpot is empty. Not sure why he thinks he needs to get it started tonight, tho. :/
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When to eat the Thanksgiving meal was also a battle with my wife. Her family always had it for dinner at like 6 or 7. Growing up, we always ate around 1. This had the added benefit of eating leftovers that night. We ended up compromising and now we eat around 3. It’s not ideal for the leftovers because sometimes I don’t even have them now. However, it does give me time to eat and get my ass firmly planted on the couch in time to watch my Cowboys play.
I hope you have a fantastic Thanksgiving. Your family is certainly spread all over. Well, most of our families are, I guess–I still have family in the Czech Republic but I have a feeling they won’t be doing Thanksgiving.
I won’t weigh in on stuffing versus dressing–I’ve tried and love both.
Let’s just leave it at you had me at deviled eggs. I could eat a dozen of those things.
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I am a deviled egg junkie of the highest order. The sad thing is, it is the one dish that never survives past the first round of leftovers. I’m my wife’s assistant for all the food preparation except for the deviled eggs. That’s my one job. Good thing about that job is if one of them doesn’t come out quite right during their creation, I am duty bound to get rid of it. Right down the gullet it goes!
I hope you and your family have a most wonderful Thanksgiving, Chris!
This is my second Thanksgiving ever. My mother in law cooked everything which was the best. She asked me if I wanted stuffing or she would just cook it separate, so I guess your family would accept me because I was happy for it to be cooked on the side! I like cranberry sauce, Australians should eat more of it.
Part of me really wanted to go out for the Black Friday sales in the hopes of seeing a fight over bargains, but I didn’t want to deal with the terrible parking, especially if the fight wasn’t guaranteed.
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I hate black Friday shopping. I did it once and swore I’d never do it again. My wife and mother-in-law love it though. I went hiking with the dog to burn some of that turkey off.
However, I never thought of black Friday as a spectator sport. If they could set up some bleachers and sell popcorn I might reconsider.