What is your Thanksgiving Tradition?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

In the U.S. today, I am sure each family is enjoying a favorite tradition that gets repeated every year during the Thanksgiving Holiday.  Thanksgiving is especially a favorite time for our family. Each year we meet at a friend’s home, our family, theirs and other friends. We even have a Canadian contingent that shows up!

This has been a tradition going back 30 years for us. It started when we were in graduate school at University of Washington. A gathering of friends who were away from home with no where to go for the holidays. So we started our own tradition of meeting for thanksgiving.  The first gathering was in our friend’s apartment, just a sheet of plywood on cinder block legs for a table and all of us sitting on the floor for a great turkey dinner. Of course we were calling our mothers for tips on how to bake that turkey, make the gravy and bake the pies. There were probably 6 or 8 of us sharing a meal. Now we have at least 17 to 22 people kids and adults that gather for the weekend on Bainbridge Island for dinner, games, walks and talks.

One thing that makes these Thanksgivings special is our dessert. For a gathering of 17, we may have 11-12 pies. Our kids have taken up the challenge to out do their parents in that category. This year our family of 4 alone
has made 6 pies to share. And I didn’t make a pie! Of course we are not totally decadent. We take a traditional evening walk between dinner and dessert. In the Northwest it is pitch dark at that time and possibly rainy, but we still put on hiking boots and get flashlights and walk to the park and down to the water.

Hopefully I can sketch our pies tonight. I will let you know how many we get.

Wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving today!

Gail Wong from Seattle.

Thanksgiving Pies 2010

Thanksgiving Pies 2011

Thanksgiving Pies 2013