We're just going to walk across the street to the #2 son's house.

The grandgirl (age 17 going on 32) is going to cook her first Thanksgiving dinner. I have been teaching her the basic cooking techniques....and I mean real basic basics. She seems to have a talent for cooking and seasoning, so it might be pretty good. Her mom is a vegetarian so she will be on her own for the turkey and gravy. I think her dad will be helping her with that.

About 6 blocks down the road. However the ds just called to inform us he is driving from New Mexico to So. Cal., with 4 college roomates and a rented car. As I started to hyperventilate (driving is my phobia) he hastened to assure me that they do not go thru LA. I know statistics show that interstate driving is safer than 2 lane rural roads, but I am so happy my Ohio small town son will not be driving in LA. I am sure he will be going thru other metropolitan areas, but I am NOT going to mapquest this route. I have enough information to keep me worried.

I'll be traveling all around the isle in my kitcen. I'm at ground zero. I've never been away from my home or my parents' home on Thanksgiving day except when I lived in Missouri it was my fav day to spend at my husbands folks' farm. We gorged and then all the men and I went hunting afterwards. At first it was because I equated spending hours at the sink with gabby women a fate worse than death........but it's hard to compare a snappy autumn day in the woods in the Ozarks to anything else. You felt truely alive in every sense of the word. Some years it was balmy and others a skiff of snow covered the ground and trudging back after dusk toward the yellow glow of the kitchen light and the smell of woodsmoke from the chimney, and a mongrel German Shephard and your ditty bags full of game, and wanting to roast your backside around the pot bellied stove was soooo welcoming. God, I miss it.

No, we're not traveling but the kids are coming home all excep the one that lives in Tacoma. He'll be home for Christmas.

Gandle, try the Turducken. It's good. I had Turducken for a couple of years in a row. Ours had cajun stuffing which was wonderful.

Turducken is wonderful, but very rich, so you don't want to heap a lot on your plate. Of course I feel the same way about goose. Love it, but it's so rich you can only eat a little bit of it.

We're having a couple of friends here for Thanksgiving & they're driving all of miles to get here.

Traveling long distances on Thanksgiving weekend is no fun, no matter what kind of transportation you're using. It's much more fun to celebrate it close to home.

No far for me, just about ten miles or so...and that's plenty. Beat cooking though, I think I did my last Thanksgiving Turkey about three years ago.

Funny you should mention goose, Andie, I'm thinking of doing one for Christmas. I used to have a knockout recipe for Goose with a garlic/pear stuffing. Utterly delicious. I lost the recipe. Trick to a leaner duck is to prick the breast all over and roast breast down for the first half of the cooking. A ton of fat rends off but leaves enough to keep the bird moist.

Sheila, the duck is stuffed in the turkey and the hen is
stuffed in the duck. No pricking of the duck breast.
I loved it, maybe i'll get one for Christmas.

We'll drive up to Sharpsburg tomorrow, spend the nite at the Rohrbach house (Civil War site) then Thursday walk over a block to daughter Mary's house. Daughter Elizabeth and SIL Matthew will drive up later for dinner, then back to Baltimore. Margarets already prepared turkey, sorry no weird stuffing, don't know what the rest will bring. SSIL used to make crab imperial, not this year. Steve in Baltimore County

No traveling here. I'm fixing roast chicken and dressing since there will be just the two of us. Son & family will be with DIL's huge clan...and I don't do large gatherings well. They were here for dinner last evening and we'll see them this weekend. This really works out well all around since "the day" can be any day around the holiday for us just as long as we get together. No squabbling over which family to spend the special day with for my son & DIL. We do the same at Christmas.

I'll be sure to raise my glass and toast the GPers...love hearing how everyone spends the holiday. josh

No travelling here. I'm hosting the feast. My folks and my brother are coming over - brother is not far, my folks are a 7 hour drive. Well, when the roads are good. Hopefully the mountains will be fine. DH and Dbrother will deep fry the turkey outside. I've got everything else going starting tonight. I can't wait!

Yes.

Instead of having my best friend's mother come eat with us and bring along waifs and strays (usually folks from abroad who are doing something or another at the Oriental Institute at the U of C), we're taking her with us on a drive to my best friend's house in Michigan, about a three hour drive from the south side of Chicago.

My friend's son is in his first year of grad work at the school of public health at the U of M and he's met waifs and strays that he's bringing home, hence the change of venue.

It's odd in a way because this is the first time in three years that my son has been in Chicago for Thanksgiving, but it works out ok, because he and his wife can spend the day with her folks in the suburbs and then meet us at our Michigan place (halfway back to Chicago from my friend's house) for roast beast on Friday.

It will feel strange not doing all the turkey cooking, but my daughter called from Florida to get the recipe for Madeira-laced gravy. (She and her boyfriend are cooking a 20-lb turkey for the two of them because both want to eat stuffing that's been cooked in the bird.)

So some traditions will live on -- maybe she'll even make the Allen Family cranberry sherbet and there will be waifs and strays at the table.

For 30 years, I was the cook for T-day, everything from bird and vegs to the pies. Packed it up and hauled 40 miles to SIL's house. Now, though, kids have grown up and most are half-way or all way to the other coast. We've spent the past 5 years jiggling variations -- from just adults and neighbors to one year of just DH and me (when I learned that even 1/2 small turkey breast provides leftovers for 2 weeks).

The jiggling has settled into going to DD's house (15 miles). My DSIL does a 25+ lb turkey with stuffing and a tasty dish of brussel sprouts with chestnuts; I bring several veg dishes, assorted relatives and acquaintances bring more stuff. DD tries to coordinate so that we don't have duplicates -- and no doubt I make her life difficult because I keep changing my mind, trying to judge how much energy I will have after a full day's work, opposed to what I'd really like to cook- except that I don't have the eighteen hours for preparation.

The weather is supposed to be heavy rain and gusty wind, diminishing late tomorrow morning. At last count, there will 14 of us, traveling from 15 to 75 miles to meet at DD's. We will range in age from 5 to 75, in height from 3 to 6 1/2 feet, in girth -let's not go there. There will be no native Amerinds; however, our cultural and genetic ancestry ranges from Egypt through the British Isles and most of the European countries. It really doesn't matter because we are all Americans, and supremely thankful for the opportunity to be together.

Oh, and the TV is not turned on until after dinner; football fanatics are permitted to tape any desired programs.