We have a HUGE Thanksgiving dinner, Start eating at noon and finish when no one can take another bite. Usually sometime after the football game. Turkey is the main dish (a pair of twenty pounders), but I/we also roast four pheasant as some of the family has trouble digesting turkey. Candied yams, pumpkin pie, chocolate pie, pineapple upside down cake, monkey bread (dunno how that came to be traditional) giblet gravy, turkey gravy, squirrel gravy, au gratin potatoes, scalloped potatoes, mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, cornbread dressing, bread and sage dressing, scalloped oysters, raw oysters, smoked salmon (for the semi-vegetarians), pink cloud, strawberry bavarians, Texas fudge cake, mac and cheese (made from scratch, not a box), baked beans, potato salads, macaroni salads, egg salads, tuna and seafood salads, meatloaves ?meatloafs? (for when you get tired of turkey), brown and serve rolls (one of my favorite Thanksgiving foods), honey, butter, margarine, Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce, gallons of hot coffee, hot tea, iced tea, lemonade, orangeade, milk, ice water, eggnog, hot cider, cold cider (pear and apple), brownies, muffins of all descriptions, corn bread, date nut bread, banana bread, zucchini bread, over a dozen different cheese balls……..

Lots more, it’s a regular family reunion, we generally have 40 or so show up. I have two electric wall ovens and a gas oven as part of the gas range. We also cook/roast in the gas grill (we rotisserie roast three of the pheasants on the grill and deep fry the last one). My brother brings his rig and we deep fry one of the turkeys (actually very good) and the last pheasant, as I said. Of course the families bring all sorts of side dishes and those I mentioned are some of them. We eat in the house, in the garages, in the pole barn, wherever we can set up tables and chairs. My brother’s family and a couple of cousins stay and help clean up, but the women of the families always do the portioning out of the leftovers. I spent over a hundred dollars this year just on disposable plastic (Glad) containers, plastic ware and heavy paper plates as I don’t usually generate enough butter bowls and the like for leftovers. Plus another thirty in plastic zip bags and napkins and paper towels.

I have also threatened next year to buy and roast a turducken (have to start it the day before) but I’ll probably “chicken” out.

A lot of work, but a lot of fun, too.