Are you kidding, there's a holiday before Christmas :-)  Who'd have thought with all of the Christmas music that was on the radio yesterday.

We always have Thanksgiving dinner with my in-laws.  We switch houses each year among my husband and his two siblings.  This is our year and marks the year that we were told that his mom had lung cancer.  We are still blessed to have her with us and I think this year will be special because we didn't think we'd have her at our house for another Thanksgiving dinner.  Everyone brings their specialty.

On the Friday after Thanksgiving we go with my mom and my sister's family to cut down our Christmas tree.  Then we go back to my mom's house, eat chicken noodle soup, and help mom decorate for Christmas.

We have Thanksgiving twice in one day, noon at dh's moms and evening meal at my mom's.  Everybody brings a dish to both places with me bringing scalloped carrots and green bean casserole.  After our eveining meal the girls scope the flyers for Black Friday shopping!

Let's move on to Thanksgiving:)  The sad part about it is, is that our so called "family tradition" fell apart when my family divorced when I was 18(now 27):S  Now my little fam goes to MY mom's Wednesday night for dinner and sometimes to the in-laws on Thanksgiving day or MY Dad's.  I'm putting my foot down on the Holidays after this year though...because they have lost all meaning.  As soon as DH returns from his 'voyage' I'd like to start holding our own family Thanksgiving dinner...with turkey, green bean casserole, stuffing, dinner rolls, GRASSHOPPERS:p etc....with relaxation and socialization.  That's all I really want:)  And whatever fam can make then GREAT!  I'm so ready to start a tradition and bring the new and the old family memebers back together!  I also think I'd like to join the "chaos" on Black Friday...but not at 12am!

We go to my MIL's house on Thanksgiving day, and have prime rib.  I always bring the pumpkin pie.  In the evening, on the way back home we stop at my DH's aunt's house, for pie.  That is where my FIL is for Thanksgiving.  Usually, on Friday, we go to my mom's house for a turkey dinner with all the fixings.

 We used to get together with friends, but now we have a family member who would be alone, so we are switching it up a bit this year... hopefully, it will still be a nice time!

The "tradition" in our family is to make fun of my mom for not knowing that I know how to bake ;)

On DH's side of the family, I am known as "the baker" -- always bringing gourmet/deluxe desserts, usually from scratch. One year, on MY side of the family, I volunteered to make pumpkin pie -- a step down from my elaborate Thanksgiving offerings, but in keeping with tradition. My mom was aghast -- "Laura! You know how to make PIE?!"

So now we have to tease her about it every year ;)

Laura Kaste, MomsLikeMe.com site manager

lkaste@appleton.gannett.com

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We are going to my in-laws for the weekend, which is what we have done since we got married.  However, NEXT YEAR we are going to host Thanksgiving meal at OUR HOUSE and invite both sets of parents!!!!!!!!  Can you tell I'm excited??? 

Also, starting next year my mom, aunt, and I are going to go shopping on Friday!  Whoo hoo!  My DH resisted this change of plan a little, but we just found out his mom is excited about it!  She might even come the night before and then help DH cook everything, so it won't be too bad for us.  It will encourage me to have a big cleaning week too.

Thanksgiving day we go to DH's dad's house (an hour+ away) for noon then we come back to town for dinner with my family.  DH's grandma used to have dinner in her little 2br apt for DH's mom's family but then started taking us out to eat when the family started growing too large (too many babies).  When DH & I bought our house 5 years ago we talked to them and everyone agreed that we would have Thanksgiving dinner for his mom's family at our house the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  Most everyone has someplace else to be on Thanksgiving day so this works great for us.  As for Black Friday shopping, I scout out the ads, get online at 11pm (most stores start their sales online at 12am ET), click, click, click and I go to bed. 

If I want to see my husband on Thanksgiving, I have no choice but to go to my in-law's. My husband is a diehard deer hunter (more into bow than gun, but even so) and claims that Thanksgiving day is the 2nd best day of gun hunting and it would be ludicrous for him to miss such an event. We have a typical Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings, but my mother-in-law does everything. In years past, I've offered to bring stuff, but it never seems to be well-received and my two SILs have never brought anything, much less offered to, so I gave up on that.

I am sort of like cloverpeachez in that my parents are divorced too, so there really isn't any kind of family gathering with either of my parents. They are usually doing stuff with their "new" families, leaving my sisters and I to make our own arrangements for the holiday.

DH always hunts the entire week of Thanksgiving so we are always 'up north' for the actual day. We always do the big meal at my moms house early afternoon. Sit down meal, fine china, tableclothes, wine, the whole bit. My g-ma and Aunt and Uncle always join us. Then we head up the in-laws cabin for a second, less eloborate evening meal. DH and I are highschool sweethearts and our parents still live in the same homes. We feel very blessed that the holidays can include everyone with just a 20 minute drive. That being said, we have started the tradition that every other year for Christmas we will stay at home with our kids so they can participate in the church service and sleep in their own beds on Christmas Eve. I agree with Cloverpeachz that we need to start our own traditions too.