My Favorite Thanksgiving Traditions

I cannot wait until Wednesday of this upcoming week because that is when our Thanksgiving traditions begin!

On Wednesday, when I get up, I always make a huge breakfast casserole and begin my dinner preparations for Thursday’s Thanksgiving dinner. Even though it is only my husband, my two children, and my mother-in-law, as well as myself who come to this dinner, we still like to have a big shin-dig.

This year, my husband purchased two huge fried turkeys and two cooked chickens from the police dept. so that has freed me up somewhat in the kitchen. This coming up week, I am going to share with you some of my favorite recipes, but today I wanted to talk about traditions.

Ever since I was a little girl, my favorite tradition has been to get up on Thanksgiving morning and pile on the couch to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Even now at the age of 35 I still do this! My kids now do the same thing. They love to watch the floats and all the acts that perform during the parade. Who knows, maybe one day I will get to see it live in person.

During the day, I am cooking away. We usually try to eat around one so that we have all afternoon to have fun. After the meal, we gather our Christmas movies and begin our annual Christmas movie marathon! (We actually started that a bit early this year since I have been  buying new ones already).

Another one of my favorite Thanksgiving traditions is decorating the house for Christmas. After the meal, our nap, and company has left, we break out the tree and all the decorations and begin sprucing up our home for Christmas.

This year, however, we are adding a new tradition. This is the first time in MANY years that we have money to go Christmas shopping, so we are piling in our van on BLACK FRIDAY and going shopping! Bass Pro Shop is having a monster sale, so we are hitting the Opry Mills Mall along with all the other crazed holiday shoppers! I may come home bald because I do not like to be shoved while shopping—it may end in a cat fight—just sayin! (just kidding)!

I love family and I love Thanksgiving! I cannot wait to share some of my very favorite holiday meals with you this week!

So what are your Thanksgiving traditions?

(Picture courtesy of Falconreid from stock.xchng)