Does anyone have any family traditions and/or recipes that you love to do with your family during the holidays. I have a couple traditions and recipes but would like to hear what others are doing and maybe include some of them in our family. I like to cook and am always looking for fun and new recipes to try. Thanks.
my mom's tradition is to put up the Christmas tree. it's fun for everyone to decorate it together. then when we all visit again at Christmas time, the tree is already up and looking great and we can focus on other activities.
Every year I make Thanksgiving dinner for my Grandma (She is almost 93), aunt and uncle. I do everything from scratch. I start cooking 3 days before Thanksgiving (I found this help so on Thanksgiving I am not in the Kitchen the whole time. One think that I do every make every holiday is out of the world rolls. This is something that my Grandma always was in charge of. I think I almost have them perfected to taste like Grandmas. (at least that is what they tell me.) This recipe is awesome!! Try it you can find the recipe on line. I also get the kids to do place card so that they fell like they help out!!
We live several states away so we almost never get to celebrate the holidays with "Real" family. This year my parents are visiting and we are having a "Family" Thanksgiving the day before. We have invited all those we consider family that have "adopted" us from our church and friends.
My Mom is an AWESOME cook and we are making Turkey, Ham and stuffing and asking our friends to bring a veggie, salad or pie from their family favorites. We want our real family to meet the families that have been there for us over the years.
We are SO looking forward to this event!
I'm not sure where you live, but here in Salt Lake, they have several Thanksgiving day races. We have done the 5k here in Draper for the last 2 years - the entry fee and donated cans all go to the Utah Food Bank. Their website is www.utahhumanrace.com. I have 4 really young children - we bundle everyone up, put the 2 youngest in the jogging stroller, and we all do it. It is really more of a "walk" for us, but the kids feel like they are doing something special and who couldn't use a 5k before they eat a big dinner?
My grandma always made dressing. Bread, juice from the boiled Turkey, eggs and sage! So simple and sooo good. We still make it every year. The family loves it.
I know a lot of people who think Thanksgiving is just for family (if you're one of those, there is nothing wrong with that!) but growing up, it was a day of sharing at my house.
Daddy always invited anyone who would be alone for Thanksgiving. So, we pretty much always had a larger "family" that day, because when they got there they were part of "us".
Also, Thanksgiving is the day that every person contributes something. I made the turkey, my brother made pies, Daddy might do sttuffing and my sister potatoes or something. That was our together time before we sat down to eat.
As for food - at some point, we came across a recipe for sweet potato soufflee. It is NOT low calorie! But as we only eat it once or twice a year, we don't care! There are pecans and brown sugar - oh, yum!
My mother-in-law makes and amazing cranberry salad (again, not lo cal). I say it's amazing, because I HATE cranberries - but I can't get enough of this salad! This has whipping cream, mini marshmallows and walnuts. Again, yum!
We always, also went around and said what we had been thankful for over the last year. Ahhh, I miss the "good ole' days!"
If you think you're interested in the recipies for the salad and/or soufflee let me know - I have no problem sharing!
we always like to go around the table at Thanksgiving dinner and tell what we are most thankful for over the past year and we try to talk to the kids about giving things to less fortunate families and try to get them to volunteer somewhere.
S.
A tridition my family picked up on the past few years was having a Pie Night the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. We heard this idea from someone else and loved it and have had a ton of success with it.
The idea is that because we all stuff ourselves on Thanksgiving we don't get to FULLY enjoy the pies that are made and brought so instead we have everyone eat a small dinner at their own homes then come over to our house and have multiple different kinds of pies to have. We normally have a small piece of each so we can taste them all and not get filled on any one thing.
We also stretched it out the last 2 years and invited friends and neighbors to join with us and we've had such a great time getting together and enjoying each others' company as well as the pies. :)
PS... When we started it we decided to have people RSVP what kind of Pie they would bring so that you didn't end up having 10 Apple pies and no banana cream pies. I believe they would limit it to 2-3 of the same kind of pie then if other people wanted to bring a certain kind of pie they'd nicely be asked to choose another favorite to bring. That has worked out very well as well. :)
Good luck and happy holidays! :D
My sister-in-law's family all goes to a soup kitchen in the morning and feed homeless. Then they go home and have their TG meal. They've also done food basket deliveries for the indigent. Fabulous way to teach kids about helping others in need.
