Thanksgiving is Coming!

It's just around the corner.....and I've got some serious planning to do.

Grant's parents will be arriving next week and his brother will be coming down from DC a couple of different times, so preparations are in order!

Which leads me to question, as I do every year, how do I balance keeping traditions with my obsession with trying new recipes?  There are some things that Grant insists upon: "It's not Thanksgiving without Mashed Potatoes", he firmly declares.

Funny to me, because we never had mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving in my family.
My grandparents did most of the cooking, and all of my mom's siblings and their families gathered at their house for the annual Thanksgiving Feast.  The menu, always the same:

• Turkey
• Ham
• Homemade Cornbread Dressing (never stuffed in the turkey)
• Homemade Cranberry Sauce
• Corn (canned or frozen from my grandparents' garden)
• Green beans (canned from my grandparents' garden)
• Sweet potato casserole with marshmallows on top (I never ate it, not once). 
• Rolls (either homemade or from Harps Grocery store - some of the best rolls EVER)
• Strawberry Gelatin Salad (my mom made it, very delicious, even though I'm not a jello person)
• Pumpkin Pie
• Pumpkin Chiffon (or Praline) Pie, made by my Aunt Nancy
• Pecan Pie
• 1 Mincemeat Pie (not sure who ate that, maybe an uncle or two)
• Piles of sweetened whipped cream (seriously, the running joke in the family, spoken by everyone to everyone else was "Would you like some pie with that whipped cream?")
• Apple Cake

I can't remember anything else.  Mom, was there anything else?

I loved the tradition, always knowing exactly what was going to be on the table and how delicious it was going to be.  The anticipation of that pecan pie was almost unbearable!

Now that I'm part of another family too, there is incorporation of my traditions with theirs....and the building of new ones.

And I just can't leave well enough alone and insist on making new things every single year.  Sometimes they turn out well, sometimes not so much.

This year, my eyes have been lingering on some new ideas from Taste of Home.....but I don't know if I'll have the guts to make all of them.

I do know, without question, that I will be making this sweet potato casserole.  Somewhere along the way, I realized that sweet potatoes are marvelous and this concoction is just divine.
I will also be making a pumpkin cheesecake, and while I already have a wonderful recipe for it on here, I'm thinking about trying another one. Why not?

So my questions for you are, do you make/eat the same things every Thanksgiving?  Do you try new recipes on unsuspecting guests?  Am I the only one who does that?  (Grant seems to think I am.)
What's on your menu for Thanksgiving?  What recipes can you not do without?

It's just around the corner.....and I've got some serious planning to do.

Grant's parents will be arriving next week and his brother will be coming down from DC a couple of different times, so preparations are in order!

Which leads me to question, as I do every year, how do I balance keeping traditions with my obsession with trying new recipes?  There are some things that Grant insists upon: "It's not Thanksgiving without Mashed Potatoes", he firmly declares.

Funny to me, because we never had mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving in my family.
My grandparents did most of the cooking, and all of my mom's siblings and their families gathered at their house for the annual Thanksgiving Feast.  The menu, always the same:

• Turkey
• Ham
• Homemade Cornbread Dressing (never stuffed in the turkey)
• Homemade Cranberry Sauce
• Corn (canned or frozen from my grandparents' garden)
• Green beans (canned from my grandparents' garden)
• Sweet potato casserole with marshmallows on top (I never ate it, not once). 
• Rolls (either homemade or from Harps Grocery store - some of the best rolls EVER)
• Strawberry Gelatin Salad (my mom made it, very delicious, even though I'm not a jello person)
• Pumpkin Pie
• Pumpkin Chiffon (or Praline) Pie, made by my Aunt Nancy
• Pecan Pie
• 1 Mincemeat Pie (not sure who ate that, maybe an uncle or two)
• Piles of sweetened whipped cream (seriously, the running joke in the family, spoken by everyone to everyone else was "Would you like some pie with that whipped cream?")
• Apple Cake

I can't remember anything else.  Mom, was there anything else?

I loved the tradition, always knowing exactly what was going to be on the table and how delicious it was going to be.  The anticipation of that pecan pie was almost unbearable!

Now that I'm part of another family too, there is incorporation of my traditions with theirs....and the building of new ones.

And I just can't leave well enough alone and insist on making new things every single year.  Sometimes they turn out well, sometimes not so much.

This year, my eyes have been lingering on some new ideas from Taste of Home.....but I don't know if I'll have the guts to make all of them.

I do know, without question, that I will be making this sweet potato casserole.  Somewhere along the way, I realized that sweet potatoes are marvelous and this concoction is just divine.
I will also be making a pumpkin cheesecake, and while I already have a wonderful recipe for it on here, I'm thinking about trying another one. Why not?

So my questions for you are, do you make/eat the same things every Thanksgiving?  Do you try new recipes on unsuspecting guests?  Am I the only one who does that?  (Grant seems to think I am.)
What's on your menu for Thanksgiving?  What recipes can you not do without?