Thanksgiving Poll

How many of you are celebrating Thanksgiving? 1) What are your plans? Who with? 2) Are there any special traditions associated with the holiday or the weekend? 3) Do you fix any special plates to share? 4) What is your strategy for getting through it sane and without compromising your eating plan? 5) What are you thankful for this year?

1) What are your plans? Who with? We're going to my sis's for Thanksgiving. She's been having dinner at her house since my mom passed away many years ago. It will be me and my family, my dad, my sis and her family, my brother and his family and maybe a couple of friends of mine who have no family nearby. All in all, it will be about 25 people. 2) Are there any special traditions associated with the holiday or the weekend? Not really. In the past, my sis had to work on Thanksgiving (she's a nurse) so my BIL does all the cooking. I usually go up early and help out, but this year she's off. I'll still probably go up early, though, just because. After dinner, we typically play cards - poker or euchre. 3) Do you fix any special plates to share? My dad is usually in charge of bringing pies, which he orders from a local restaraunt. I usually bake one or two, as well. This year, I'll be making my SF Oreo pie that has become so popular. 4) What is your strategy for getting through it sane and without compromising your eating plan? Dunno. I'm eating like a horse this week. I think this is the singular worst case of PMS I've ever experienced. Acne like I've NEVER had it before in my life, swelling, you name it. My goal is to not eat the plates and napkins... I'm probably going to concentrate my time on the kids, keeping them entertained. There'll be a bazillion of them so hopefully they'll keep me on my toes and out of the food. 5) What are you thankful for this year? There's lots of things I'm thankful for, of course. But if I had to name just one, it would be my sis. She has been a great source of support for me this year with everything going on with Aaron and I don't know what I'd do without her. She's 13 years older than me and since my mom died, she's the one I kind of go to when the going gets tough. She's always a good listener but good about calling me out when I need it, too. She knows me better than pretty much anyone else.

I'll answer this one... 1. Im cooking this year for MIL/FIL/SIL... there will be 7of us.. 2. Traditional foods.. turkey, stuffing, sweet pot, corn, broccoli, roll*****in pie etc. 3. I dont fix anything out of the ordinary. MIL is bringing a cherry pie and cranberry salad... DH requestted the pie and I dont like cranberries but I LOVE her cran salad... go figure. 4. My plan is to take a bite of everything.... and enjoy the company more than the food... I love having the family around. 5. I am thankful for my life..... Im feeling good, have great friends, great family even tho they drive me nuts, I have enuff money to cover what it needs to cover, am healthy, MUCH better job than last year, DH just started a new job.... MUCH to be thankful for this year. I hope all my friends here in cyberland have a wonderful thanksgiving and are truely blessed this year....

1) What are your plans? Who with? My mother is doing most of the cooking and sy sisters are bringing dishes. My sole contribution to the meal will be some baked acorn squash and a tossed salad. 2) Are there any special traditions associated with the holiday or the weekend? Yes, enjoy dinner then spend the rest of the weekend hitting the books to prep for final exams. We do have a special Thanksgiving church service that's always noce. 3) Do you fix any special plates to share? not quite sure what you mean... 4) What is your strategy for getting through it sane and without compromising your eating plan? Getting all leftovers out of the house. I've already bought 3 packages of Gladware containers to pack up the leftovers and send them home with my sisters. I'm also planning to get up extra early and workout first thing in the AM because I know that I'll be too busy or too tired to do it later. 5) What are you thankful for this year? God has blessed me beyond belief. I am extremely thankful for my relationship with Christ, my family, my health, and my 160 pound lighter body! I'm not as thin as I would like to be, but compared to my heaviest weight of 319, I'm literally half the person I used to be! Hugs, Tracy

1) What are your plans? Who with? We are traveling to Grand Rapids to spend Thanksgiving with Steve's mom. We haven't seen her since Easter so the kids are all excited. (I'm not so excited about the 3 1/2 hour drive though) 2) Are there any special traditions associated with the holiday or the weekend? Nothing real special. Oh we always buy a new board game/card game to play on Thanksgiving. That has been our tradition ever since I can remember. 3) Do you fix any special plates to share? Normally Steve does a turkey and I do most of the rest, but this year we are making none of it. His mom wanted to do the whole thing. (I wanted to go out to dinner) heehee 4) What is your strategy for getting through it sane and without compromising your eating plan? My eatting plan in non existant at this point. Eatting has gone right down the tubes this week. Yesterday for lunch I couldn't even eat a 1/2 a cup of potato soup. Not good not good. So I guess my eatting plan is to play with my food enough so people will think that I'm eatting and not start in on me for not eatting enough. 5) What are you thankful for this year? At first this was a difficult question. I'm in pain constantly, my arms just quit working when ever they choose, I'm so exhausted I'm sleeping 14 - 16 hours per day! Now I'm back to having trouble eatting, which means I'm starting to drop weight (3 lbs this week).But........... I'm NOT in a hospital right now. I'm NOT on life support. I have a very HEALTHY family. I have a husband who loves me till it about kills him. I have children who are willing to give up EVERYTHING just to have me home with them. I have friends on here who literally keep me going through all of this. I AM TRUELY A VERY BLESSED WOMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Happy Thanksgiving to All!!!

1) Plans? Who with? Our family still gathers at my parent's home. All the family will be on hand, down to the last great-grandchild. There will be too much food to be shared among the 25+ of us. 2) The after-dinner afternoon tradition is for the women in the family to look at the after-Thanksgiving Day sale ads and plan for shopping on Friday. There are now four generations of the women in the family that gather on Friday morning for breakfast, and then attempt to survive a few hours of the mad Christmas shopping rush. The rest of the Thursday afternoon is spent playing cards, watching football, and seeing who will fall asleep on the couch first! 3) I come from a family of good cooks, but nothing special is planned for tomorrow. 4) No real strategy in place. We just plan to have foods that accomodate any food restrictions that one might have, from lo-fat to lo-cal to no sugar. We try to look out for each other, and the plan seems to work. 5) I am thankful for so many t hings. I thank God for my family, my daughter and grandson. I am thankful for a my two jobs that keep me on the go, friends that support through everything, and my health which is much improved. It all makes me look forward to the coming year with great anticipation.

Hi, Becky and everyone!! 1) What are your plans? Who with? This is actually the first time in I can't even remember HOW long it will be JUST the four of us (me, hubby, and kids). I'm making a small turkey and a SMALL bit of all the other fixins. 2) Are there any special traditions associated with the holiday or the weekend? Football, football, and more football. We may go see Happy Feet tomorrow. 3) Do you fix any special plates to share? We usually have dumplings, something my mom started. I always used to make this cherry cheese pie, though, but there is absolutely NO way to make it sf, (it's made with sweetened condensed milk). I would love your Oreo pie recipe, though!! 4) What is your strategy for getting through it sane and without compromising your eating plan? As I said, I'm making a small bit of all the fixins, so there won't be huge amounts for my consumption. I'm with you on the eating like a horse. I was PMSing a few weeks ago and felt like I could eat any and everything in site. 5) What are you thankful for this year? Oddly enough, I am getting some help dealing with some things that I didn't realize I needed to deal with, but have come up recently. I am dealing with them in a mature, non-hiding way. I am actually feeling the feelings, going through the right steps, and not trying to stuff, push away, or hide the experience. I am actually sharing it with hubby, too!

How many of you are celebrating Thanksgiving? Me! Me! Me! 1) What are your plans? Who with? We are picking up prepared food from Wegmans at 9 am sharp and taking it to Rich's parents house. After a few hours of listening to them whine and complain... we'll happily leave and go off to Rich's work. He is doing the 3 pm to 8 pm shift on air (WARW 94.7 Classic Rock in Washington DC) 2) Are there any special traditions associated with the holiday or the weekend? Not anymore. I haven't had T-day with my own family in almost 20 years since I moved out on my own. Living 300 miles away and knowing I would see them in 4-5 weeks for Christmas... I got out of sharing the holiday with them. I was reminscing with my boss at work today over my T-days growing up. Strangely, it was the frozen vegie generation of conveniences. We had: turkey w/ homemade giblet gravy a la Dad, Ocean Spray cranberry jelly from the can, Stove Top Stuffing, Mrs. Pauls frozen candied sweet potatoes or candied sweet potatoes w/ apples (if we could find that one), Birds Eye Creamed Pearl Onions, Birds Eye French Style Green Beans and (perish the thought here...) Potato Buds (though my sister and I often begged for "real" potatoes and we often got 'em too). And dinner rolls. Dessert was Mrs. Pauls pumpkin pie and mincemeat pie. 3) Do you fix any special plates to share? Since we are doing prepared foods... the only extra made was Mashed Sweet Potatoes. Rich made 'em this morning. This way they aren't made with brown sugar. It is one of Emeril's recipes... simply with butter, sour cream and nutmeg. Very nice. 4) What is your strategy for getting through it sane and without compromising your eating plan? No strategy needed for this holiday. Christmas will be harder. Tomorrow, I'll have turkey w/ gravy, green beans almondine, mashed sweet potatoes and a bite or two of rosemary roasted potatoes. That's it. I know enough not to overeat or deal with the wrath of the pouch. No temptation for sugar since I dump like a bad dog. 5) What are you thankful for this year? I'm thankful that my sister came through her surgery and her chemo just fine and dandy and seems to be doing very well. I'm thankful that my dad came through his prostate cancer treatment well, that he is happy in his new home though he is never there and most of all because with Peggy (aka his "Golf Buddy") in his life... he is more active and social then he has ever been. I wish I had his life. I'm thankful for having Rich in my life. I'm thankful for my health.

1) What are your plans? Who with? I am having dinner with my family and my best friend and her family. We are going to spend the day just being together and letting all 6 kids play together 2) Are there any special traditions associated with the holiday or the weekend? Prep prep and more prep. I try to get as much done the night before so that I can enjoy being with my family and friends on Thanksgiving 3) Do you fix any special plates to share? Mac N Cheese (Even though I can't eat it) 4) What is your strategy for getting through it sane and without compromising your eating plan? Eat what I can and be done 5) What are you thankful for this year? To be alive. It has been a rough year but God and family have brought me through.