What are your Thanksgiving plans?

[Lady Fury]

I'm going to go to my sister's for Thanksgiving this year. I made a promise to my uncle, who was in a near fatal motorcycle accident a few months back, that I'd bring the kids back for Thanksgiving. My dad called me up last night and wants me to bring my son as well. All 4 kids on a 2 1/2hr car ride on my own doesn't sound appealing not to mention that we'll be staying a night and my son hasn't ever done that at my parents. He hasn't been to Walla Walla since we moved 3yrs ago. He was only a couple months old then. Singularity isn't going for many reasons but we are using the reason that he has to work on his book, which he does, as the main reason. I'm fine with that but the thought of enjoying Thanksgiving dinner while managing 4 kids doesn't sound like fun. So I'm still trying to decide if I'll take my son. Part of me wants to because he usually gets left out of my trips and I feel a bit guilty but then the sensible side of me knows if I take him I won't get to sit down until we are back home. I think I'll tell my dad that if I bring my son that he needs to help me out during dinner time so I can have a chance to eat something too.

Then Friday morning I promised my sister I'd get up at 4am to go black Friday shopping with her. I must be crazy. But over all I'm still looking forward to spending time with the family. Especially my sister. She had a really bad month and she really wants to spend time with me so she can talk things out. (Her son turned 18 a couple weeks ago and went out and got alcohol poisoning. He stopped breathing for a minute. He's fine now but my sister is still trying to deal with it.)

One really big happy note: I don't have to cook this year! :D

[Droid101]

Parents are flying in from Hawaii and spending the week (or so) at my new condo. I get to sleep on the couch. Huzzah.

[Varaj]

The same thing we do every Thanksgiving Pinkie.

[Name Lips]

Dinner at my mom's house. Apparently some more distant relations I've never met are showing up, her cousin's family from her mother's side.

Now... what does that make their kids to my kids?

[Steampunk]

Dinner at the Mother in Law's place. The Wife's brother is bringing his wife and 15 mo daughter with him, too, so my little devil gets to play with his cousin. Should be fun. :D

[Morbidity]

Dinner at my mom's house. Apparently some more distant relations I've never met are showing up, her cousin's family from her mother's side.

Now... what does that make their kids to my kids?
Third cousins.

[Xavier Lang]

I'm going to eat until I hurt. We've had 3+ Thanksgiving invites every year for the last 4 years or so. We always go to at least 2. I don't resist wonderful food that only is made once a year very well.

[cyphersmith]

We're hosting Thanksgiving for most of my wife's family. Should be fun, what with about 20 people in our 1470 sq ft house. Oh, the fun actually has already begun, with the over the range microwave dying Saturday. Luckily, the person we bought the house from in February bought a 1 year home warranty (I didn't know you could buy such insurance). So it's getting repaired/replaced for the $55 deductible. But, it's not likely to be replaced before Thanksgiving, so we will ask my father-in-law to come early and bring his.

[Droid101]

Luckily, the person we bought the house from in February bought a 1 year home warranty (I didn't know you could buy such insurance). So it's getting repaired/replaced for the $55 deductible.

Off topic, but yeah man, I have that on my condo. Already got my money's worth with them fixing a bunch of plumbing stuff for, you guessed it, $55 bucks. Better yet, it was paid for by the seller!

[DarwinOfMind]

Have to spend the day with my girlfriends family, I think that she is less thrilled about it than I am, but neither of us are happy to be going.

[Lady Fury]

We're hosting Thanksgiving for most of my wife's family. Should be fun, what with about 20 people in our 1470 sq ft house. Oh, the fun actually has already begun, with the over the range microwave dying Saturday. Luckily, the person we bought the house from in February bought a 1 year home warranty (I didn't know you could buy such insurance). So it's getting repaired/replaced for the $55 deductible. But, it's not likely to be replaced before Thanksgiving, so we will ask my father-in-law to come early and bring his.

Off topic, but yeah man, I have that on my condo. Already got my money's worth with them fixing a bunch of plumbing stuff for, you guessed it, $55 bucks. Better yet, it was paid for by the seller!


My dad called me last night telling me that he was waiting on a part for their over the range microwave as well. Apparently his won't shut off unless the door is left open. They've had issue with it for years. Doesn't seem worth the hassle to me. Plus those microwaves tend to cost a lot more to repair and replace. I'll keep my stand alone microwave. That little machine hasn't given me any issues and it's 8yrs old.

[cyphersmith]

My dad called me last night telling me that he was waiting on a part for their over the range microwave as well. Apparently his won't shut off unless the door is left open. They've had issue with it for years. Doesn't seem worth the hassle to me. Plus those microwaves tend to cost a lot more to repair and replace. I'll keep my stand alone microwave. That little machine hasn't given me any issues and it's 8yrs old.

I like having it out of the way, but you're right, they do cost more. But on our side, it's cheaper to repair/replace the one that's already there than to buy a new stand alone. Another issue with over the range microwaves is they're smaller. We won't know until tomorrow if they're going to be able to repair it (probably not, it's pretty old, and it needs a new computer), or replace it. So we will be using my fil's microwave anyway. Which we actually gave to him when we bought this house because it already had a microwave, so we know it's a good one.

If they decide to replace it, I hope that we have some choice in the replacement.

[Droid101]

My dad called me last night telling me that he was waiting on a part for their over the range microwave as well. Apparently his won't shut off unless the door is left open. They've had issue with it for years. Doesn't seem worth the hassle to me. Plus those microwaves tend to cost a lot more to repair and replace. I'll keep my stand alone microwave. That little machine hasn't given me any issues and it's 8yrs old.

Microwaves are like $40 bucks!

[Schizm]

I'm on a business trip in El Paso, so I don't really know what our group's plans are. We thought we would be having to work on Thursday itself until we actually had feet on the ground in the center here on Monday, and since we'll need to be here on Friday (but not sat/sun) we have to stick here rather than fly home.

It'll probably end up being that the company foots a fairly expensive bill for the thanksgiving dinner my boss will buy for us.

[Limper]

My plans are simple... to survive it.

[Brynja]

Driving up to Cape Cod with Kevin to spend it with his parents.

[AriesOmega]

Going to the in-laws for Thanksgiving. I am kinda expecting a "conversation" from the father-in-law :(

This is the first year in...I dunno...many that we were not cooking. It's just us...no one else.:( My in-laws are very different then my family back in California. They are Catholic, Republican, conservative...(whispers)repressive and IMHO only do for the poor and the needy when it suites them. My father-in-law was a little pissed last year when I had a Jews, an Athiest, a family member he doesn't like due to what his deceased uncle did about 20 or so years ago and assorted people that are NOT related to me over. I told him "I am head of THIS household, my rules. No one who comes in is turned away, everyone eats, no one goes hungry. Everyone has something to be thankful about even if it/s a full belly." He cited that Thanksgiving is a family only event and huffed off when I told him I am NOT budging on this issue.

This comes from that in my family back when I was younger and living with my parents our tradition was to invite anyone from work, church or whatever that did not have a place to go. Everyone and anyone was invited. My dad had chafing dishes from working in resturants for years and would put out food in that for any walk ins after the actual feast. In fact he'd have food ready at all times they day before and after. We had a few "homless" and or down on their luck people in the neighborhood and they'd eat at our place or we'd take it to them.

My dad grew up upper class in Costa Rica but at an early age his family gave to those who were poor...dirt poor so when he came to the US he tried to instill that in us kids that you give what you can to others.

[Brynja]

So what c onversation are you two having?

"Listen Amigo try not to invite the homeless guy into my house?"

[AriesOmega]

So what c onversation are you two having?

"Listen Amigo try not to invite the homeless guy into my house?"

:lol: Good one.

No...more like "I am pissed you invited the cousin. I can excuse the fact you had a Jew and an Athiest at the table...but the cousin I am still mad at."

You see the cousin in question...Alex...his uncle is the wife's dead beat biological father. My father in law is actually a "step father" but the wife regards him as "dad" since he has been around since she was a tween.

The bio-father was not a nice man and his huge family...the Plasters hated him. He was like 4th of 10 or 12 children. Anyhow bio-father was the black sheep and he passed about two years ago. The Plasters tracked the wife down which wasn't easy to tell her and wife reconnected with the Plasters.

They are all pretty nice and upstanding folks, but father-in law regards all of them as evil...even the ones that were not born or were like 8 when the incident happened. Alex was out here in the DC area with the Air Force for training and has no family here. He became a big part of our life and a good friend to me. He'd come over just to hang out with me, take me to the range to go shooting...he is a gun enthusist and all that.

Last year we had Thanksgiving at our house. Mother in law due to health reasons can't leave. We were going to visit later that evening. Father in-law last year was told weeks in advance and given weekly reminders that we would have Alex, the Jewish neighbor, athiest and other people a Repulican, NY Irish Catholic would NOT like. No homeless this year :D The father-in law came over to MY HOUSE to say hello and stop in to say hello, saw I was serious and got the ass about the cousin. I guess divorced jewish women, athiest, gays and liberals are exusable but a cousin who wasn't born when shit happened is a No Go.

[shiningbrow]

No drama at our house beyond trying to stuff a 13 pound turkey into our little oven (Wedgwood vintage stove). We usually cook a duck, but this giant bird was less than half the price of a duck, so we are going to wrestle with it and prep some sides--pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes with parsnips, green beans, cranberry-orange relish and a salad. That should take most of the day. If our next door neighbor isn't doing anything, we'll probably have him over. He's an older guy, single, who likes to eat and his family is on the other side of the country.

[Glass]

Dinner with some friends and ignoring phone calls from my family. Just like every Thanksgiving and exactly how I like it.

[Dawnstar]

We went to my brother's house to have dinner with my sister, brother and mother. It was a pretty good time. then I went shopping.

[shiningbrow]

Our dinner was magical. Everything turned out amazingly well and even though we have a kitchen the size of a postage stamp, we didn't bump heads once and the whole meal was coordinated and all of the items came out at the same time. We're having leftovers tonight. I'm going to have to join a health club if this keeps up!

[AriesOmega]

Our dinner was magical. Everything turned out amazingly well and even though we have a kitchen the size of a postage stamp, we didn't bump heads once and the whole meal was coordinated and all of the items came out at the same time. We're having leftovers tonight. I'm going to have to join a health club if this keeps up!

I think something is in the air. This year went drama free actually! Knock me over with a feather. Our meal went very well also.

[Limper]

I got to cook the turkey... must have been good cause my 4 year old ate about 1lb of it all by himself (then slept for 3 hours).

I got to season it! At long last turkey with flavor!