One of the things I love about having my own little family is the ability to make traditions. It’s like when one becomes a parent, one has the magical power to carry on family traditions, or not, so when we had to cancel our Thanksgiving trip this weekend due to illness – which was fortunately short-lived – I thought, opportunity knocks.
In direct contrast to seemingly everyone else on this continent, a turkey dinner, to me, is not an amazing and exciting feast, one to be anticipated and to impel the wearing of elastic waisted pants. A turkey dinner, to me, is a dinner in which I eat dinner rolls and vegetables. Even in the days in which I did eat meat, I never enjoyed turkey, and the sight of a turkey, cooked or raw, could turn my stomach. It’s just so…graphic. I do not particularly enjoy mashed potatoes or cranberry sauce, stuffing is repellent to me, and I do not like pie, any kind of pie, but especially pumpkin. So while I understand that the vast majority of the population looks forward to a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, I most certainly do not.
So when we opted to stay home for Thanksgiving, I put together a Sunday dinner that consisted of the following: freshly baked European peasant bread, salad with goat cheese, dried cranberries, pine nuts, and balsamic oil and vinegar, and butternut squash bisque. I also prepared pork chops for the guys. The dinner was delicious, I thought, and happily festive, what with the squash and the cranberries. My husband even went so far as to say that the soup was the greatest soup he had ever had, although I took that with a small grain of salt as he had just finished golfing, strangely, 24 holes, and was ravenously hungry.
Despite that, my husband really missed his turkey dinner. We discussed traditions, and he is of the camp that the boys should be able to have a turkey dinner for certain holidays, Thanksgiving being one of them, even if we do not go to someone else’s house for it, as we would have this weekend. So, yesterday we went out for dinner, and he ordered the Thanksgiving special.
It’s hard sometimes to merge family traditions when you get married, but it’s especially hard to just ignore family traditions. As far as I’m concerned, I could never be involved in another turkey dinner for the rest of my natural life, and I would be happy. My husband and the boys feel differently.
Our conclusion? My husband can make his own turkey dinner. I’ll make the soup.
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| Maybe for our next Thanksgiving dinner, we can have duck! Just kidding. Ew. |
I could eat a whole meal of stuffing. But making a big turkey dinner? Not my cup o tea. Hubs does not like it and the boys do not care. So, I don’t. But if someone cooks it for me, well I am all over that. So let hubs cook away.
I think there a lot of people who don’t like turkey, ie me. If it were up to me, we’d have a big pot of spiced black eyed peas. My husband likes turkey, so he cooks one. He also makes vegetables (potatoes, squash, carrots) roasted in whole spices and they are divine.
By the way cooking an unstuffed turkey takes way less time than playing 24 holes of golf, so maybe your husband should adjust his priorities.
Way to compromise. It’s true – managing the merging of your family traditions with his family traditions in order to make your (plural) family traditions can be a delicate business. Either way — it would be just wrong if someone who hates turkey was forced to cook a turkey.
Your dinner sounds delish! Much better than the traditional turkey dinner!
I don’t eat turkey either (or any other meat), but I am required to cook it for Thanksgiving, per my husband’s wishes. Every year I am so grossed out and pitying the poor little bird. Yuck.
You had me until you started knocking pumpkin pie. Some things are SACRED, don’t you know?
I’m so deeply, deeply disappointed. 😉
I have to agree with the husband here. We like turkey dinner so much we had it twice. However, the soup and salad sounded like good Thanksgiving additions.
LisaDay
Whereas we host Thanksgiving for the entire family, complete with TWO turkeys. 🙂