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| Thanksgiving Day Greetings (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
In all the years before I became an adult I don't think I ever spent a Thanksgiving away from home. Every year my mother would fix essentially the same delicious traditional dinner. Over the years she may have added a new side dish, but I don't think there were any she stopped serving. Thanksgiving was one of my favorite days of the year and other than a couple of exceptions, the table was almost always set for just my parents and us kids. Since we were far from relatives most of my time growing up we didn't have any other family to join us.
Then when I went on the road with a touring theatrical company in my mid-twenties, I started missing those meals that had meant so much in my early years. During the 80's our tradition became eating at some buffet restaurant in Hendersonville, Tennessee since every year we were booked for a Thanksgiving evening show in nearby Gallatin.
I would take the cast members and treat them to dinner. The food was decent and nicely priced. And it was all-you-could-eat which was appreciated by a young troupe of low paid actors. It wasn't my mother's Thanksgiving dinner, but at least it was a notch up from the typical road food we usually ate.
Over the past several years I've fixed a meal very similar to the one my mother used to fix since now I live in Los Angeles and she's in East Tennessee. In recent years their meals have been mostly potluck affairs since my mother doesn't do the big cooking events that she used to. As our kids have moved away far across the country from us, our Thanksgiving dinners have become smaller.
This year we won't be having a dinner at our house. Instead we'll be traveling to visit one of our daughters who lives closest to us, though still over a thousand miles away. Not sure what will happen for dinner, but I'm sure we'll think of something.
It's been a while since I've had Thanksgiving away from home. I'm looking forward to the road trip though. There's something about a long driving trip that stimulates my mind.
Do you have Thanksgiving at home or away? Will you fix dinner or does someone else do it? Have you ever had your Thanksgiving feast at a restaurant instead of someone's house?
