Thanksgiving

Four more days to Thanksgiving.

Learn "We Gather Together To Ask The Lord's Blessing" and/or "Turkey in the Straw". Play and sing for your family and friends, and then eat and drink 'til you can't stand to look at food no more. Then lay on the couch for awhile, and then get up and have some pumpkin pie with whipped cream.

Ahhh . . .! Remember to have some Tums handy. Happy Thanksgiving! ld:

This is some weird American thing where everyone sits around eating turkey, right?

jollyboy said:

This is some weird American thing where everyone sits around eating turkey, right?

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Certainly not! There's also mashed potatoes and candied yams and maybe a good salad and some kinda veggies (NOT Brussel sprouts!) and wine and/or cider AND pumpkin pie with whipped cream or iced cream and, if you're lucky, a second kinda pie or dessert and, of course, coffee.

Bon Appetit! ld:

I wonder if there's a ukulele arrangement for Sly and the Family Stone's “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)”? Might have to add a bass ukulele in the mix to get that authentic Motown sound.

Snargle, I just don't know. ld:

jollyboy said:

This is some weird American thing where everyone sits around eating turkey, right?

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it gets even weirder if you're a vegetarian and then you sit around eating fake turkey...

PTOEguy said:

it gets even weirder if you're a vegetarian and then you sit around eating fake turkey...

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We've got some vegetarian friends coming over for dinner so I'm making a nice spinach and mushroom lasagna. I refuse to eat fake meats. I'd rather eat something that I know will taste good.

One of the most pleasant holidays we have. The family comes over, there's a giant meal, we watch college football games, it's great. My nephew is vegan and I always make him vegan mac 'n cheese (with Daiya cheese substitute that is exceptionally good) and a vegan pumpkin cream cheese pie (Toffuti cream cheese, also excellent) topped with candied pecans. I'm also going to prepare a turkey with a wet rub that will marinate over night.

Snargle said:

Might have to add a bass ukulele in the mix to get that authentic Motown sound.

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From my years living in Motown, I remember sweet potato pie being more popular than pumpkin. And if you're going to play bass in Motown music you've gotta get that James Jamerson style under your fingers.

Ah, thanks for the memories. Here in China the malls look like Black Friday nearly everyday.

Let us not forget the reason for the turkey: the tremendous generosity shown to our ancestors by the native peoples of these lands. It's uncomfortable, but equally important to remember how we treated them after the hardships were over (hint in case you forgot: badly).

Ahh.. Thanksgiving! My favorite holiday! It's like Christmas without the hassle of gift shopping!

Hippie Guy said:

Let us not forget the reason for the turkey: the tremendous generosity shown to our ancestors by the native peoples of these lands. It's uncomfortable, but equally important to remember how we treated them after the hardships were over (hint in case you forgot: badly).

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I've always wondered what it was all about - so it was about the native Americans whose generosity was abused by the incoming foreigners, who killed off most of them, because they wanted to keep their lands.

Hippie Guy said:

Let us not forget the reason for the turkey: the tremendous generosity shown to our ancestors by the native peoples of these lands. It's uncomfortable, but equally important to remember how we treated them after the hardships were over (hint in case you forgot: badly).

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Maybe it would be a good day to turn off the big game on the boob tube and read aloud "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" to be more grateful for what we have and what it cost?

uke1950 said:

I've always wondered what it was all about - so it was about the native Americans whose generosity was abused by the incoming foreigners, who killed off most of them, because they wanted to keep their lands.

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Yep.

Need to read that book, Luke. Thanks for the reminder.

uke1950 said:

I've always wondered what it was all about - so it was about the native Americans whose generosity was abused by the incoming foreigners, who killed off most of them, because they wanted to keep their lands.

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Every nation has its origin stories (King Arthur on your side of the pond). The "story of the First Thanksgiving" is taught to every schoolchild in America. Some of it is accurate, some is pure fiction, and the rest is complicated. As we become a more enlightened society (notwithstanding the occasional backslide) we tell a more nuanced and complete version to the kids as they grow older.

At its heart, the First Thanksgiving (both fact and legend) is a story about a moment in history when people from two different and very perilous worlds met in friendship because they needed each other. The European settlers acknowledged their debt to the natives, without whose help the pilgrims would surely have starved to death (as many did the previous winter). The Wampanoag, decimated by disease from earlier Euro traders around Massachusetts Bay, sought alliance with the English against inland tribes who now threatened to overwhelm them.

Everybody at that feast had seen family and friends die. Everybody was improvising in a world turned upside down. None of them knew what would happen next. But there was a good harvest and there was food to share, and they chose to celebrate together.

Today we can look back and see how low we fell after this promising beginning. But it did happen once, and it can happen again, and it exemplifies the best of what America can be. That's why little kids still perform the pageant every year, dressed in cardboard pilgrim hats and feather headdresses.

The college football is a whole other thing.

Snargle said:

We've got some vegetarian friends coming over for dinner so I'm making a nice spinach and mushroom lasagna. I refuse to eat fake meats. I'd rather eat something that I know will taste good.

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As a lifelong vegetarian I applaud your attitude - food should taste good. That said, I live for Thanksgiving/Christmas when my family makes gluten "steaks" and homemade vegetarian bologna.

PTOEguy said:

As a lifelong vegetarian I applaud your attitude - food should taste good. That said, I live for Thanksgiving/Christmas when my family makes gluten "steaks" and homemade vegetarian bologna.

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Man, I can't even stomach carnivore bologna!

Happy thanksgiving everyone!!

Happy bird day to all.

Well, Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who (you hoo?) enjoy it. It's our favorite of all the holidays. Have a second
helping of stuff you like (not Brussel sprouts) especially pumpkin pie with whipped cream and watch whatever football games you follow.

There are just too few feasts in our lives . . . eat, drink and take a nap! Ahhh . . . :cheers: ld: