Thanksgiving Traditions

Today, I'm linking up with Astleigh and Rachel for Every Girl Link-Up to talk about Thanksgiving Traditions!

I love Thanksgiving.  In fact, it might very well be my favorite holiday.  Just the thought of family gathering together in a (typically) cooler month brings me great joy.

Ever since I was a young girl, my day started out like this:

I absolutely LOVE watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!  New York City is my favorite city in the world, and I love seeing the parade on TV each year.  Although no one in my family really watches this with me anymore, I like to watch it just the same.  I'm trying to get my two young sons (ages 3 and 1) involved in watching it.  :)  I think this year I really have a shot at the parade entertaining them.

Of course, I'll follow this tradition with watching some of the dog show afterwards (not the whole thing, but a few minutes of it).

Later in the day, I try to watch Miracle on 34th Street since the movie starts with the Thanksgiving Day Parade.  It's the perfect movie to transition into the Christmas season.  I could also just as easily watch either Home Alone or Home Alone 2: Lost in New York simply because when I was growing up, a local TV station would alternate which of these two movies it showed each year on Thanksgiving night.

I'll spend part of my day making green bean casserole (I'm always dubbed the green bean casserole maker) and I'll also try to whip up some sweet potato casserole (with brown sugar topping), and maybe a chocolate chess pie since it's my dad's favorite.  My husband, our two boys, and I drive about 20 minutes to my parent's neighborhood, which is also the neighborhood where my mother-in-law lives.  This year, Thanksgiving will be at my mother-in-law's house.  Also, my husband's dad and stepmom moved to our state and they will be joining us as well.  It's such a special blessing for both sides of the family to get along, and also to be able to have both my husband's parents there.

Thanksgiving dinner is not complete without canned cranberry sauce and some form of pumpkin pie (and pumpkin baklava, which is a new tradition in our family beginning last year).

A festive candle like Yankee Candle's "Kitchen Spice" is also a nice touch on Thanksgiving.

My dad and I are really the only ones who eat the cranberry sauce, but tradition is tradition!  My Thanksgiving wouldn't be complete without it.

This year, I found these place mats at Target for my sons:

There's four in a pack, so I hope to use the remaining 2 next year. Of course I know my sons are really too young to be able to write what they are thankful for, but I like the idea of starting early in life with understanding what thankful means.

This year, our Thanksgiving celebration will take place at supper time.  If we were eating at lunch or early afternoon, then you can bet we'd be having left-over turkey sandwiches for dinner that night!  However, this year since we're eating later in the day, we will have our turkey sandwiches on Friday instead. :)

This link up was so fun!

I can't wait to read about the traditions of others!

Until next time,

Much love, Reba