Starting New Traditions: Thanksgiving 2018

Joe and I have been married for 10 years now, and I can’t remember having even one Thanksgiving together in the past decade where I wasn’t a gloomy Gus leading up to it, until this year.  Let me explain…

Growing up, my family celebrated Thanksgiving right. As far back as I can remember, we always invited friends that didn’t have family around, over to our house because we ourselves didn’t have family around either.  We figured we might as well not be lonely and just celebrate together.  Thus began a tradition amongst ourselves to become one another’s family.

And I don’t even know when this happened, but eventually my sister and I decided to take over all of the cooking, minus the select dishes we assigned to our friends to bring.  We started ripping out pages from magazines and avidly watching cooking shows up until the week of Thanksgiving…and then it was a cooking marathon, involving multiple days of shopping, prep, garlic mincing, and potato peeling.

It was fun, but also stressful in a gratifying way. But everyone KNEW we would deliver a spread, and leave not even one traditional Thanksgiving dish off of our table.  Sometimes we’d even throw in a lasagna on top of everything else just for good measure.

I LOVED how our home was the anchor to keep this tradition alive for multiple families for so many years.  Our parents would turn on the fireplace, and sometimes it snowed, creating an even cozier environment.  Our house would be a buzz with joyful noise, laughter, and activity. Multiple hands would rush around the kitchen and scuttle towards the dining room table to get everything in place.

The table would be busting and we’d just be snacking, grazing, and gorging for HOURS on end.  And then we’d leave everything on the table without cleaning up right away because we’d inevitably go for round 2 after we digested dessert!

The adults would chat over coffee, tea, and fruit in the living room, and the kids would turn on a Christmas movie, like Home Alone.  Then we’d finally call it a night…after a very long evening…because no one wanted it to end…and we’d look forward to eating the leftovers the next day!

BUT…everything changed when we got married.

My sister tied the knot first and now had to divide time amongst her in-laws.  Friends eventually did the same.  Then I married Joe and we moved out to California.

Eventually the tradition came to an end and I’d hear that my parents were spending Thanksgiving alone with pre-made side dishes and a rotisserie chicken they bought at Sam’s Club.  And Joe and I also alone, and new to the west coast (thus lacking both family and friends), spent our first Thanksgiving there in 80 degree weather, wearing flip flops and shorts and walking to Starbucks for iced vanilla lattes.  That was probably my worst and loneliest Thanksgiving memory to date.

This continued on year after year, in some shape or form.  I mean, in hindsight, I can’t complain, because that’s where the inspiration for our Thanksgiving dinner for two came from, and I know those recipes have been helping a lot of people.

But truth be told, even when we eventually moved to Chicago a few years ago and were no longer alone because we had Joe’s parents nearby, it still felt empty.  None of our siblings were around, and my parents weren’t either.  I even got a pass the year I was pregnant with Lincoln, where Joe’s mom cooked a simple meal for the four of us, and all we had to do was show up.  I was thankful for that, but it also left me a bit unsatisfied, especially since I actually enjoy cooking the Thanksgiving feast.

With all that said, I feel like I’ve been growing a lot as a person and something finally clicked this year.  I decided to snap out of my “woe is me” holiday funk and no longer mourn the traditions of my past.  I knew with Lincoln now being a toddler and old enough to actually be aware of the holidays, that it was time to create new traditions of our own.

In the past ten years, I’d make excuses…our place is too small to host a party…there’s toys everywhere so it’s not a nice environment…we don’t have enough family around to go all-out and cook a turkey with all the trimmings…etc.

But I decided this year that I want to be a good steward of whatever God gave me, and not wait until I “have more” one day. I don’t have to wait until we have a big house or more guests to invite. I can make the best of whatever we have NOW.

Truth be told, this year, Thanksgiving crept up on me and I wasn’t quite in the festive mood.  But I pulled it together, and decided to host our first ever Thanksgiving feast at our home post-baby.  It turned out that Lincoln was sick with fevers and quite irritable the entire day, because he unknowingly had hand foot mouth…yikes!  In fact, I ended up getting sick from him this week as well…hence why I’m posting this so late.  In fact, I am still battling a sore throat and body aches as I type this entry right now.

We ended up inviting Joe’s parents, but at the last minute, I was made aware that our sister-in-law’s family had no plans of their own…so I invited them too because I knew we’d have plenty of food and I figured the more the merrier!

And then I realized I was starting the whole tradition of inviting those who didn’t have a place to spend Thanksgiving…just like my parents did!  It made me want to sing “Circle of Life” from the the Lion King.  Our place is indeed pretty small, so it took some creative planning, throwing Lincoln’s toys in the laundry room, and making use of a folding table to get everyone AND the food to fit.

But I went through the effort of decorating with tablecloths, candles, pumpkins, and cloth napkins. Too bad we forgot to take pictures of my nice tablescape!

I also had to straight up lock Lincoln out of the kitchen while I cooked, causing him to feel ignored by me all day…and then turn clingy for the rest of the night while our guests were over, but my heart was so full!

It had been several years since I had to cook a turkey…about 10 years in fact, so I was afraid I would forget my tricks, but it came out juicy and perfectly cooked…hallelujah!  I feel like if the bird is right, then Thanksgiving is saved.

I also made the ham, cranberry sauce, green beans, corn, Kale Salad, and Savory Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms.  It’s rewarding when you can pull up recipes from your own blog.  I hope to eventually have more recipes for Thanksgiving items in the future.

I did end up giving myself grace and taking some short cuts from Costco, like the stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy.  Usually I’m all about making EVERYTHING from scratch for this meal, but when I initially thought I was cooking for just 4 adults, I didn’t want to go through the hassle of peeling, boiling, and mashing my own potatoes.  But of course I couldn’t stand by and not doctor them up with my own flavors.

I was all prepared to make my Apple Pie Parfaits with ice cream for dessert too, but my mother-in-law brought a really delicious looking pumpkin pie from a local bakery, so I decided to give myself a break, and just spend more time with our guests.

Everyone had a good time. We played Frank Sinatra in the background, lit some candles, cheered to wine, and had great conversations. It was a pleasant grown up version of what I loved of my Thanksgivings of my past.

We even got to FaceTime my family in Pennsylvania, and Joe’s brother’s family in Korea, which made us feel like our Thanksgiving was complete. I hope one day we can all celebrate in person together.

I was so glad that I started this new tradition in our home and had a successful dinner. Yes it took us several days to prepare beforehand and a couple days to clean up afterwards, but even through the mountain of dishes to wash, Joe admitted it was totally worth it and was proud of me.

The only sad part was that we were so preoccupied with trying to host and trying to figure out why Lincoln was so whiny (from being sick and feverish), that we forgot to take family pictures…I’m talking not even a single one!  I was genuinely upset about that, so the next day, while we were eating leftovers with just the three of us, I made sure to take a couple of sweet snaps of our boy.

He probably had a sore throat, so he still didn’t want to eat any of the food, but at least we got a couple of smiles out of him.  I wish he could’ve enjoyed his mom’s home cooking and appreciated having guests over, but there’s always next year!

I hope we can continue on with this new tradition and invite those who don’t have Thanksgiving plans to our humble home, so that Lincoln can grow up with the same fond memories of Thanksgiving like I did.