Monthly Musings: Thanksgiving Preview (Recap?)

It's the last Thursday of the month which means it's time to link up with Holly and Patty for their Monthly Musings. This month is all about Thanksgiving.

Disclaimer: Since I'm Canadian, we've already celebrated Thanksgiving this year. Canadians celebrate the second Monday in October and I think it tends to be more low-key than American Thanksgiving. I think we celebrate earlier because the harvest ends so much earlier in Canada. If we waited until the end of November to celebrate, it would be winter. Also, I don't know about the States, but there is a HUGE emphasis on giving to food banks in the lead up to Thanksgiving. If you want to know more than you ever cared about, including how it used to rotate between being celebrated in October and November, you can read more about Canadian Thanksgiving here.

image from here

1) Favourite Thanksgiving traditions?

If it weren't 2020, we likely would have watched the Oktoberfest Parade with friends. However, it is 2020 so we couldn't. Something else we've done a few times over Thanksgiving is gone to visit Dave's relatives in New York. We've done it about three times and it's the perfect time to go. Again, if it weren't 2020, we might have done that this year.

Oktoberfest parade watching in previous years.

2) Favourite Thanksgiving dish? Will you share the recipe?

I'm vegetarian so we don't do a big turkey dinner. We usually have a lot of seasonal Fall vegetables from our CSA so we bake them all. I think this year we had roasted beets and roasted squash. I don't have recipes for them -- we just like roasted veggies. We usually eat them with baked fish but this year we had sauteed shrimp and it was amazing! Hello new tradition!

3) Football game? Yes/No? In person? On TV?

Football isn't tied to Thanksgiving here. And our national football league was cancelled for this year so we didn't watch football. Rachel and I really got into watching the Fall Hallmark movies though and I could be excited about that new tradition :)

4) Talking turkey -- white meat or dark meat?

When I used to eat turkey, I loved white meat. And oddly enough, after being vegetarian for eleven years, the year I was pregnant with Rachel I had a HUGE craving for a cold turkey sandwich with mustard. So I downed white turkey meat from the Christmas turkey on two sandwiches. Pregnancy cravings are real (and weird).

5) Do you call it stuffing or dressing?

We call it "stuffing" and my mom and dad make the best stuffing -- they fry onions and celery in lots of butter, add spices (I think summer savoury is the one which really makes it but I could be wrong) and then fresh, white bread. It's soooo good and, even though I've been vegetarian for over twenty years, I will still eat a big helping of stuffing from the turkey!

6) Tell us three things are you thankful for in this crazy Covid Thanksgiving.

Over our Thanksgiving weekend I was thankful for Hallmark Fall movies, our gorgeous Fall weather and the amazing leaves, and that I made my dad's sauteed shrimp recipe and it turned out really well!

Fall leaves with Sam, Fall 2013

 

Fall leaves with Sam and Rachel, Thanksgiving 2015

 

Fall leaves with the whole family, Thanksgiving 2020

7) Pumpkin pie? Apple pie? Pecan pie?

I'm not a huge pie person but I will eat apple pie every day. Yum! (I hate pumpkin.) 

Thanksgiving 2013, the year I actually baked an apple and a pumpkin pie.

8) If you celebrate Christmas, do you put up your tree before or after Thanksgiving?

Since Thanksgiving is the second Monday in October in Canada, no one puts their tree up before Thanksgiving :) We put ours up around the first week of December because we get a live tree and it won't survive if we put it up much earlier.

9) Black Friday shopper, yes or no?

No, I'm not a Black Friday shopper. I've talked before about how I don't know how Black Friday became a thing in Canada. It's so weird. (You can read my little letter to Black Friday in Canada here.)

10) Do you sit at the table for Thanksgiving dinner or dine more casually?

We go all out. We pull out a tablecloth and the Fiestaware dishes and make it really pretty. I think we're probably fancier for Thanksgiving dinner than we are for Christmas dinner!

Fancy Thanksgiving tables at friends' over the years.

Our festive Thanksgiving this year. We had dinner with a friend over Zoom, thus the computer!