Giving Thanks on Thanksgiving

***Today is the last day to enter both November Giveaways.  Use the links on the sidebar, thanks!***

I went back through my photo files this morning to find some turkey shots.............

This was from a visit to Fry Brothers Turkey Ranch where we stopped for lunch after picking up Ex-College Boy from school a couple of years back.

And I found this shot...........

From Thanksgiving 2014....we got 8 inches for Turkey Day that year.  Even so the almost foot we got a week BEFORE Thanksgiving last week is still lingering this morning.

I've got the turkey in the oven, the roll dough is rising and I am about to head out the door to(where else?)Rite-Aid to get my freebies.....well maybe not the ear buds because I still have a few pairs of those from previous years.

I hope everyone has a peaceful day.  If you have to be around aggravating just have a drink like me and chill.  ;-)

I'll close with this bit I posted back in 2016........

"Before you dig into your "unzip the pants meal" today, take a moment to acknowledge everything in your world that you have been blessed with, whatever that may be.

Myself I'll be thankful for---
* my level of health given my medical issues and for the resources and medical folks who keep me going.
* my awesome kids though one is far from home today.
* my spouse who puts up with me and loves me.
* that we live below our means which means we can be a financial blessing to ourselves, our family, our friends and our country.
* this blogging platform and all you dear readers out there that has enriched my life.

Now make sure you hug everybody you see today(that's where that drink comes in handy lolz(......
Ok, maybe not that creepy guy in line at the grocery store if you have to run out for emergency supplies this morning. ;-)"

Sluggy

Thanksgiving of Days Gone By

I was reminiscing recently about the Thanksgivings of my childhood.
Since my father only ate a small range of foods, the bounty on our Thanksgiving table was very predictable.

There was always a whole turkey. 'Nuf said.

There was stuffing, not dressing or filling.  The stuffing was always shoved into the bird and a small auxillary pan contained whatever didn't fit into the bird.
A few times my mother put oysters into her stuffing as she dearly loved oysters.  I don't believe she told my father when she put those into the stuffing. ;-)
She didn't do a cornbread stuffing(even though she was a Southern gal through and through)because again, that is something my father wouldn't eat.

There were always mashed potatoes and gravy.  REAL mashed potatoes with lumps. 8-)

And potato rolls made using Great Aunt Ollie's recipe.(My mother actually got her to write down the recipe before she passed as Ollie didn't have any recipes, except in her head.)

Side dishes-There was always rutabaga(known up North here as "orange turnips" by many). My father turned his nose up at rutabaga but with plenty of other foods to partake of, mom got to indulge one of the foods of her youth anyway.
Sometimes there were green beans(I don't recall a green bean casserole affair however), sometimes corn and sometimes sweet potato casserole(no marshmallows!).

There was always jellied cranberry out of a can.  We didn't go in for fancy pants whole berry relish or anything like that.

The preferred drink was unsweetened iced tea, usually still warm from being made, with ice cubes in your glass.  I miss that mix of warm and cold swallows of tea from the glass.  The thought of it takes me back to Thanskgiving.

The dessert was pumpkin pie with a dollop of real whipped cream or Reddi-Whip on top.  Sometimes there was also pecan pie(but generally that only appeared at Christmas).

Everything was made from scratch by my mother(except the jellied cranberry "glop").  The only concessions to convenience foods was the "glop"and sometimes the aerosol whipped cream and the veg may have been out of a can(back before frozen veggies were good).  No canned sweet potatoes, no gravy in a jar and no pre-cubed bread(I still remember having the job of toasting all that bread and tearing it up for the stuffing. lolz)

I guess you could say we always had what's known as a very traditional American Thanksgiving meal with very little variation.

Given Hubs will eat almost anything and we both have a wider palate than my father(most anybody but a 5 year old child has a wider palate), my Thanksgiving menus, though fairly Traditional at it's core, has expended a bit to include different side dishes, more pie types and even smoking the turkey one year(nobody cared for that treatment much here so it didn't ever happen again).  We also trade-off each year between Great Aunt Ollie's potato rolls and Great Aunt Lula's dinner rolls(a recipe mom got from her Aunt Lula after I was grown and passed down to me).

So it's over to you dear readers.......what are your food memories of Thanksgiving?
Let's share our recollections.

On that note, I hope everyone is with the folks they cherish tomorrow(or at least in your thoughts and prayers if circumstances keep you apart)and y'all can celebrate Thanksgiving in the way that gives your life meaning.  8-)))

Sluggy

A Little History With Your Bird-Happy Thanksgiving!

*Here's a rerun of a post I did 7 years ago(7 YEARS?!?!).  It's a little history to have with your turkey and pie(or whatever your food of choice).

Enjoy and go get that turkey in the oven! ;-)

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers,

Sluggy

A Short History of Thanksgiving in the New World....

Every school child learns at a young age that the Pilgrims held the 1st Thanksgiving Meal that we celebrate to this day.
But actually, the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony were NOT the first European settlers in the New World to hold a Thanksgiving.

There were FOUR earlier Thanksgiving celebrations on this new continent....one was held in what was to become North Carolina and three in what was to become Virginia.

#1 Took place in 1586 on Roanoke Island, NC. near present day Manteo.   This was the contingency brought to the New World by Sir Walter Raleigh to found a settlement.  These 100 men lasted about a year and after holding their meal of Thanksgiving they folded up shop and sailed home.

#2  Took place in 1609, at Jamestown, Virginia at the Jamestown Settlement.  This is the First Thanksgiving held by European immigrants at the 1st permanent settlement in the New World.  (Since the Roanoke Colony was abandoned, that earlier celebration is often discounted.)  This Thanksgiving was held after a year of near starvation.  They were thankful that they had survived the lack of food and disease and that a relief supply ship was soon to arrive.

#3  The same Jamestown Settlement held another document-able celebration in 1612, when the Colony's Governor returned with a shipload of women destined to be wives for many lucky settlers. 

#4  Another document-able Thanksgiving dinner was held in 1619 at nearby Berkley Plantation, also along the James River near Jamestown in VA.

#5  The Thanksgiving celebration at Plimouth Plantation wasn't until 1621, a full 35 yrs. after Roanoke Colony's and 12 yrs after the first Jamestown celebration.

And then there is the contingent that sees the 1st American Thanksgiving as being celebrated in St. Augustine Florida in 1565 by the Spanish explorers, long before the Pilgrims or Sir Walter Raleigh's crew or the Jamestown Colony gang.

I often think that historians pegged the Massachusetts Thanksgiving as the genesis of the Holiday due to the fact that the colony was founded by Europeans fleeing religious persecution.  And once they got here the Pilgrims began exhibiting discrimination toward anyone who wanted to practice different religious beliefs from theirs, but that's another lesson in intolerance for another time. ;-)

The VA Colony founders were farmers and merchants who took part in settling the New World for economic freedom and opportunities.   The religion stuff was not the issue for them.

Having grown up in the South, I often felt that the earlier VA based Thanksgivings were not given their due.  The way it comes off, since none of those school books I ever read as a child mentioned any of the other earlier Thanksgiving celebrations, is that only people who are religiously oppressed are worthy of being considered the 1st to give thanks.

Nope.

Having grown up and sought knowledge beyond those inaccurate textbooks I have learned a more accurate history of the Holiday.

And that's without getting into the whole "There were indigenous people here long before the Europeans arrived" issue, so yah, the Holiday is way older than whatever anyone claims!

But I can safely say that the cutest first Thanksgiving celebration was this one from my youth....

No matter which date you observe as the "first" Thanksgiving Day, here's hoping your day to Give Thanks is peaceful, you have people around you that you truly care about and who care about you, and you are aware of the many awesome blessings you have and something good to eat.

I'm off to count mine....one by one.
Then some more food prep and to check on my proofing roll dough.

Sluggy

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kermit and I just wanted to stop in quickly between cooking chores this morning and wish y'all a Happy Thanksgiving!

Before you dig into your "pants unzipping meal" today, take a moment to acknowledge everything in your world that you have been blessed with, whatever that may be.

Myself I'll be thankful for---
* my level of health given my medical issues and for the resources and medical folks who keep me going.
* my awesome kids though some are far from home today.
* my spouse who puts up with me and loves me.
* that we live below our means which means we can be a financial blessing to ourselves, our family, our friends and our country.
* this blogging platform and all you dear readers out there that has enriched my life.

Now make sure you hug everybody you see today......
Ok, maybe not that creepy guy in line at the grocery store if you have to run out for emergency supplies this morning. ;-)

Here's a nice tune I like to listen to on Thanksgiving......


And here is a funny video of Irish people trying an American Thanksgiving dinner........

So what's on the menu today at your Thanksgiving table?

Sluggy