Thanksgiving Traditions

What are our Thanksgiving traditions? We always order a bourbon pecan pie from Handmade Desserts in Portland. We have been going to them since way back when we lived on Sawyer Street, which may well be six or seven years now. Tandy always bakes a pumpkin pie with tons of molasses in it. It is my very favorite style of pie. For the last two years we have been going out to Vinny T's for dinner on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something about " no dishes." Makes a lot of sense to me. In the morning we all sit around and watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Well, really I do something else like writing this blog entry, for instance, but Tandy and the girls have been doing this since...forever. When Tandy and I used to drive to Pittsburgh, PA to visit my family, she and my grandmother watched the parade. Now she and our daughters watch it. By my count this is a tradition about fifteen years old or so.

Then tonight we will have family over to our house for dinner. We always serve a huge Thanksgiving dinner, catering to the inclinations of all who attend. When my vegan sister joined us two years ago, we also prepared a "Tofurky Roast". It was so like a small, dried-out haggis that I thought it ought to be called a Tofaggis. Even my sister was totally dismayed at how wretched it really was. There was plenty of vegan-safe food nonetheless since we do not normally use a lot of milk or butter in our cooking to keep the "point count" down. There will be a few bottles of beaujolais nouveau from Georges Duboeuf and an organic beaujolais nouveau from Chateau du Boisfranc.

After everyone heads home after dinner, the girls hit the sack and Tandy and clean up as quickly as possible, then I hit the sack. My youngest and I get up early and head out for Black Friday. We have already reviewed the sales circulars in the Thursday paper to pick our items. She and I motor out to the stores at 6am to satisfy my gadget freak self as inexpensively as possible. This year we have our eye on a Kodak 4MP camera for Tandy and a 40GB pocket harddrive, 1GB USB thumb drive, and the new DLO TransPod all for me and a copy of the movie "Elf" for my little companion. We only spend about two hours and are normally back home before most people get going. I have had my eye on a pocket harddrive for some time, but they were always a bit out of my price range.