Anyone else have a non traditional Thanksgiving dinner?

Well, the menu was traditional, but DH & I started a tradition we called The Orphan's Dinner.
For friends who could not or would not go home for the holiday.

Whoever hosted the party just made the turkey - the rest was potluck and we always had an amazing spread.
People brought their homemade favorites so there were always several stuffings/dressings, sides and PIES!

This was nearly 30 years ago & most of the group has scattered to the winds.
I miss those gatherings - they felt like real Thanksgiving not some obligation.
 
Prime Rib and Lobster. My husband can't have turkey because it causes his gout to flair up, but the lobster doesn't funny. Then squash pie and maple pumpkin cheese cake.
 
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Not at my house. We had invited guests one year, a widower friend and his son. The two of them and my daughter are all vegetarians, so we made decorate-your-own-pizzas and skipped the turkey. It's the fellowship that counts, not the turkey.
 
For several years after our children left home, we got tired of making TG dinner just for two, so we started going to a local homeless shelter aimed primarily at veterans and cooking and eating dinner with them. That was fun. Then a couple of churches joined in and started bringing pot luck, we just did the meat. Got to taste a lot of goodies that way. Finally the shelter turned into a long-term home for the vets and they started doing their own Thanksgiving dinners, so I guess we worked ourselves right out of that job. Now we're both retired, so we're back to cooking for two again.
 
We're doing the traditional meal this year. My husband isn't a turkey fan, and I love it, so it's the only time of the year I get to eat it. Yummmm, turkey sandwiches! But we have done the not traditional at DH's family - prime rib, ham or lamb there.

Sometimes I wish we had moved away from our families. I love them to pieces, but every year it feels like we're pulled in different directions. My mom and her "They always get you for the holidays" (untrue). DH's family is just if you wanna come, great, if not that's fine too. It's the same crap at Christmas.

We're skipping town next year for Thanksgiving.
 
This year will be interesting. My partner is a carnivore, I'm a vegetarian who will eat some fish and my granddaughter is coming who recently became a vegetarian. My partner bought a small turkey from friends who are raising them, I will grill some salmon but there will be mostly traditional sides. I guess salmon is both non traditional and traditional...
Tried a Tofurkey one year and it was really quite awful.
 

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