I always ask my family what they want for Thanksgiving dinner every year. Invariably they always go for tradition, which is fine with me. We only eat this way once a year, so it's more a treat than a drag of eating the same old same old.
We have made one minor change in recent years, my husband now brines and smokes 2 turkeys. We do 2 because every year my mom (who is single and lives by herself!) always wants to take a whole turkey home. Added benefit of hubby doing the turkey is it gives me more time to spend visiting with the family and I have more space in the oven. Most dishes can be prepped ahead of time.
Menu:
- Turkey (in the smoker)
- Stuffing (in a crockpot on the counter)
- Mashed potatoes (cut and placed in water ahead of time, cooked on the stovetop or in the Instant Pot right before dinner)
- Green bean casserole (the one item I personally would like to get rid of, but it's sentimental for hubby. Prepped ahead of time and cooked in the oven right before dinner)
- Brussels sprouts with garlic aioli (which is what everyone else eats instead of the bean casserole 😆 Prepped ahead of time, cooked in the air fryer right before dinner )
- Sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping (my mom makes every year at my kids' request, prepped ahead of time and usually cooked or warmed up in the oven next to the green beans)
- cranberry-cherry relish, made a day or two ahead and refrigerated
- Fresh fruit salad with a Gran Marnier dressing (dressing made ahead of time, fruit prepped while beans/potatoes cook)
- Pies homemade (a day or two ahead) - usually dark & spicy pumpkin, and a huckleberry pie. Sometimes I'll make apple.
We used to do rolls, but the last couple of years I've dropped them from the menu because we have plenty of other carbs. No one seems to miss them. I usually make a batch the next day for leftover turkey sliders.
One of the things I DID decide to do different this year was to use the good china for this reason:
My 89 year old grandmother is moving from a 2 bedroom apartment to a 1 bedroom at the Wrinkle Ranch, so she's downsizing her belongings. Nobody wants any of her china because none of us have memories of even seeing it, let alone using it. So it means nothing to us. For about the last 10 years, I've used our regular everyday plates during the holidays because a) I was worried about kids/dogs/husbands breaking the good china, and b) it was easier, I could put the everyday plates in the dishwasher, whereas the china (which is rimmed with real silver) has always been hand-washed, which is time-consuming and exhausting. After a recent conversation with my youngest son who is now 21, I realized that I'm doing the same thing my grandmother did - I'm not allowing him to make memories of this special china, which has been handed down from generations on my husband's side of the family, and has some really cool stories associated with it. He will inherit it, and I want him to have fond memories of us using it. So we're going to this year. 😊