Our Thanksgiving Tradition-With a Twist

My husband's family is very, very close-even down to second and third cousins. We have had a tradition for as long as my husband can remember of renting a big hall and bringing all our food. We can have anywhere from 20 to 70 people. We carve our turkeys-2 or 3-make the gravy and give thanks. It's a great time to catch up on relatives who, even though they mostly live in the area, may not have the time to get together during the rest of the year. After the dishes are washed, we bring out the games-the oldsters play Pitch, the kids do Uno or Apples to Apples, and the rest of us gather around our favorite games.

This is when the important part of the day happens: My sister-in-law brings out her homemade popcorn balls, a tradition started the year they were married and didn't have money to make anything else; I open up my homemade Almond Roca, a required offering-I'm not allowed in the building without it; and the rest of the family sets out various other goodies and nuts. We start our celebration about noon, and we play games and snack all afternoon and into the evening. Then someone decides it's time for "Turkey Buns," turkey cut up into gravy and served over my husband Stan's homemade rolls, topped with a big slice of onion! Nobody's hungry but we know it's a precious tradition, so we all make a valiant effort to eat just a bit more.

Then we clean up the hall (for many years it's been the Belgrade Senior Center) and go out into the cold, hugging and promising to "do this more often!"

Our Thanksgiving is the stuff of legend, and anybody is invited-my son's friend from Brocton calls every year to see if it's still on!

This was the story that I submitted to our local TV station.  They decided I won, and turned it into a skit to broadcast on the Friday Evening News.  This is the revised version of our celebration:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=593209107266&oid=94711736971&comments


Hope you all are on Facebook so you can see this!