What was Thanksgiving like when you were a kid?

[Archae]

When I was kid, in the mid to late 60's and 70's, (I turned 18 in 1977,) this is what we did just about each year.

My parents, sisters, (usually just the two younger sisters,) and myself, would get into the station wagon.
(Had to be a Dodge. My Dad hated foreign cars and Fords.)

Each of us would bring a toy. Just one.

Dad would drive from here in Sheboygan county, down to Germantown, in Washington county, about an hour's drive.
We'd go to my Mom's Mother's house, she was widowed, and had a large basement that her older grandchildren would set up big tables with chairs.

We'd have turkey, chicken, mashed potatoes, etc.

Then we'd go outside and play some game, sometimes kickball, other times softball.

The older kids stayed in the house, the girls with the ladies usually sitting around talking.
The boys watched football with the guys.

As the sun would be hitting the horizon, we'd go home.

The little kids were already sleeping, on couches and a couple beds.

Or in the car back seat heading home.

These parties ended when my Grandma got sick a couple times and had dementia, the last several years of her life in the 80's.

Most of my uncles, aunts and a few cousins have died off too.

I miss those days sometimes.

[tymorial]

1. All of my family on my mother's side would rotate who hosted

There would usually be between 20 and 24 people together. I would steal my auntie Mary's peas. Everyone still jokes about that one and if by chance anyone from my family recognizes that, I miss you guys.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. It was always just my immediate family, plus spouses when we acquired them.

Last edited Thu Nov 26, 2020, 12:36 AM - Edit history (2)

We'd have pheasant instead of turkey if my dad had a successful hunting season, but it was otherwise pretty much like a Sunday dinner but with more pie. I don't think we had a Thanksgiving with any additional relatives (maybe when I was very young but I don't remember), all of whom lived out of town, and there weren't many of them anyhow. Some Thanksgivings I had to work so I didn't attend at all. Now just about everybody is dead except for my two siblings, one of whom lives in a distant state and the other doesn't give any more of a shit than I do, so we don't do anything, which is fine with me.

Come to think of it, I now remember a couple of Thanksgivings we spent with friends of my parents and their two kids. Still pretty low-key occasions.

[JenniferJuniper]

3. Dinner at my aunt's ice cold old colonial,

Kiddie's table in the kitchen. Fresh bird from the farmer's market, still with it's head on when they brought it home. But the peas were always bright green frozen Birds Eye.

[Siwsan]

4. We always celebrated at my paternal grandmother's house

Mom and Dad would head off to a big rivalry football game between Flint Northern, where they went to high school and Dad was a star player, and Flint Central. My siblings and I would gather in front of the HUGE turquois colored table top turkey roaster, waiting for Grandma to turn that little knob that opened the lid. Meanwhile we'd gaze into the little, very steamed up window to see a very blurry view of the main course. When she turned that knob, the aroma that filled the kitchen was beyond heavenly.

Dinner was always the turkey, sage stuffing, mashed potatoes with creamy milk gravy like only grandma could make, corn, sweet potatoes, a wilted lettuce salad and, of course, pumpkin pie with fresh whipped cream for dessert.

On the way home, Dad would always drive through downtown Flint so we could see the holiday lights. They weren't lit until that night. To us kids, they were breathtaking.

[dhol82]

5. We were immigrant Russian in the fifties. I seem to have blocked everything up to 1965

Of course, my mother was the world’s worst cook so that might have been part of the problem.

[Skittles]

6. in England, non-existent

I don't really remember Thanksgivings in America; my dad worked holidays and we never lived near relatives so it was just another day I suppose.

[yellowdogintexas]

7. actually fairly quiet. We did not have big family gatherings on Thanksgiving

unless my mom's brother and his wife were around then we would have dinner at her parents' house. Sometimes her two stepbrothers and their families would make it down and it would be a big dinner.

However, normally it was just us. My dad was not fond of turkey so my mom usually roasted a nice pork loin roast which we all loved. Sides could be just anything that we all liked. And we always had pie of some sort, usually pecan.

[LeftInTX]

8. When we lived in Wisconsin, we would drive from Neenah to South Milwaukee

Eat and then endure hours of football games

[Arkansas Granny]

9. I don't recall my mother ever fixing Thanksgiving dinner.

We always drove into town and spent the day at my Dad's aunt and uncle. It wasn't as big a deal then as it is now.

In the mid 60's I got married and the first Thanksgiving meal I ever cooked was with 2 other couples who were stationed at the same base as my husband.

The biggest meal I ever cooked was after my divorce. In addition to family, I invited everyone I knew that didn't have anyplace else to go. I wound up with 26 people crammed into the house and we had a blast.

When my daughter had children, I passed the torch, so to speak. She and i still fix a large meal together, but we started having it at her house. It has always been the more the merrier.

This year really feels strange.

[Mister Ed]

10. Worst day of the year at our house.

Christmas was second-worst. Lotta strife in that house. Wouldn't have been a good subject for a Norman Rockwell painting.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

11. Non-stop fighting. Same with Christmas, same with Easter.

Even when one of us kids birthday came around. Very few holidays or days that others looked as days for celebrating that fights didn't happen.

[Glorfindel]

12. A big, joyous celebration

Everyone came to our house. Sometimes there would be 50 or more relatives and friends. Lots of good food, good company, and happiness. I wish all my DU friends the happiest of Thanksgivings this day...we do, after all, have a new president to be thankful for!

[catbyte]

13. My grandparents, my dad's cousins, and any stray neighbors/friends all came to our house.

When I was little, we'd go to my Nana's house in Petoskey. After she passed away when I was 12, my folks hosted Thanksgiving. There would usually be 10-12 people.

My dad would put a pterodactyl-sized turkey in the oven about midnight at 180F. He'd break every food safety rule the FDA issued, lol, but no one ever got sick. He'd stuff the turkey (apparently a no-no) then cook it for about 12 hours at 180F. The house smelled heavenly when I'd wake up Thanksgiving morning. We always had turkey, mashed potatoes, winter squash from our garden, fruit salad (a mashup of fruit/Waldorf salad), scalloped oysters, Brussels sprouts, giant green & ripe olives, cranberry relish, homemade rolls, and lots of gravy. Dessert was pumpkin pie and in the years my dad's cousin & his wife (who was from Georgia) came, she would bring a pecan pie. Yum.

Dad would make wicked whiskey sours for the grownups and a Shirley Temple for me. We would eat about 2 pm, then after the dishes were done, we'd collapse on the couch for a nap.

Good times.

[Tracer]

14. Spent Thanksgiving at my great-uncle's inn in Franconia, NH

There were always 20-25 relatives there in the inn's dining room.

My uncle had a chest freezer FULL of barrels of ice cream and the kids would beg to be allowed to scoop out a cone.

There may have been two turkeys in order to feed the crowd. I have photos of the celebration from years past.

Us kids played ping pong, ran around outside, explored the woods, collected eggs from the hen house. It all stopped when one of the grandkids died of leukemia, in the days before there were treatments for it.

[Mad_Dem_X]

15. We'd travel from NJ to my aunt's apartment in CT

My dad, mom, sister, grandmother and I would pile into the car the day before Thanksgiving and go to my mom's sister's place in Connecticut. My sister and I would sleep in sleeping bags on the living room floor. On Thanksgiving, we'd have the traditional dinner. The next day, we'd visit my mom's other sister and her family.

My grandmother, dad, uncle and one of my cousins have since passed on. I miss them, and the good times we all had.

[Mr.Bill]

16. We used to gather with the relatives for similar good times.

By the time I was an adult, we had moved away, then the elders started dying off. I too, spent many years missing those tiimes.

The when I was around 50, it hit me. We still have those gatherings, except now I'm no longer one of the cousins. I'm Grandpa. To some, I'm Great Grandpa.

This year I'm Grandpa on Zoom.

[blaze]

17. Just the immediate family. Mom, Dad and three kids

It's the only time we sat down at the dining room table for a formal meal. Also the only time the good china was brought out.

Always a turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy (don't remember the greens, but probably green beans) home made dinner rolls (the kind that looked like a knot), cranberry sauce from the can and a little dish with gherkin pickles and some other stuff. Mostly I remember the house smelling like fresh bread!

Then the tv would be turned on for a marathon of football games. Then friends of the kids would start to rotate through the door and the "holiday" jigsaw puzzle table would be set up and stay up until after Christmas. We also had a table size (2' tall) cribbage board that invited many casual games.

Very good memories.

Today, Mom and I ate our dinner together via Skype. We both found it surprisingly satisfactory.

[Wicked Blue]

18. My parents were immigrants

and Thanksgiving was not a big deal to them. Turkeys were rarely eaten in their cuisine, and my father disliked poultry of any kind. Pies were also unfamiliar to them, as were sweet potatoes.

They weren't ignorant; both were law students before the war and spoke several languages. I think they were trying to hang on to their culture and not become Americanized, just in case their homeland became free and they could move back. Never happened during their lifetimes.

My mother must have made some kind of special dish on the occasions when we did celebrate it. Possibly meat loaf or some pork dish, I don't really remember. Instead of cranberry sauce we had lingonberry jam, lingonberries being a sort of miniature cranberry from northern Europe.

Also, we didn't have any close relatives in the U.S.

[csziggy]

19. Most of the time Mom was forceed to make Thanksgiving dinner and host

Although my father's mother had another son, his wife never hosted dinner for the family. So even though Mom worked she had to make arrangements to be off, clean off the formal dining room table which most of the time was a second office for my father's business, cook everything since Grandmother and her friends never brought anything (Grandmother's friends from up north would come down to spend winters in Florida with her), serve everything, and clean up afterwards (Grandmother never helped nor did her friends and we four girls were required to keep them entertained before and after dinner).

Mom never complained but I knew it gave her a lot of stress. Grandmother never liked Mom, she much preferred her other daughter in law, but Mom was the one who could handle Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter dinners. My aunt was constantly having children or miscarriages so she was never asked even in years when she wasn't pregnant or sick. My uncle and aunt and their brood (six kids) never came even though they were invited to every special dinner.

Horrible family dynamics that even as a kid bugged me.

The best years were when Grandmother's sister came with her special friend since they had good senses of humor and lives completely foreign to our restricted experiences. My aunt's friend was a medical doctor who was very active in encouraging women's sports and my aunt was a Phys Ed teacher at Oberlin College. They both traveled a lot and had great stories about their trips.

[smirkymonkey]

20. It was always a pleasant holiday in our home growing up.

We would do the usual feast - Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, some kind of green vegetable, either acorn squash or butternut squash, cranberry sauce or relish, usually some other "gourmet" side dish, pumpkin bread, zucchini bread, assorted appetizers before the meal, wine.

It was always my immediate family and occasionally one or both grandmothers (my grandfathers died before I was born). Sometimes a set of aunts & uncles, but not often. We have a pretty small extended family.

The one thing I always hated was when the men would go in to watch the game after dinner and all the women would clean up until I started to throw a fit in high school and college and slowly, eventually, the men started to help with clean up as well. And now they do it without even being asked! Times change for the better! Some of them even help with the cooking!