No, since I cooked it myself, for myself. I think if I'd gone someplace where all they served was turkey breast and sweet sides, I'd have been severely disappointed, especially since I can't eat a lot of sweet sides without, say, in dizzy interludes, walking into walls.... (Fortunately, in the past this has never happened -- there's always been a WHOLE bird, other than the year my folks decided to go to a Chinese restaurant many, many years ago... and frankly, that was fine, too.)

The thing that disappoints is that with the broken leg I couldn't do T-Day in a social venue with others. But.... I did use the phone a lot!

PS & ETA: this year I ate delicata squash stuffed with sweet potatoes, apple, onion, garlic and cranberries, and allspice/cardamom (lunch) and turkey thighs braised with cranberry, golden beets, parsnips, a random daikon radish, onion, and garlic, and Mediterranean herbs. (supper). I have plenty of leftovers from both. No extraneous sugar or sweetener, which my taste buds (and metabolism) usually don't care for, but if I really had been in the mood for dessert, I have a small container of strawberry ice cream from a local creamery that uses real (and honestly-flavored) strawberries in my freezer.

Extra PS: if I ended up at a dinner with things I really couldn't eat, I'd definitely be gracious for the thoughts. If I am driving, though, I'll bow out after a taste or two of the sweets.

I am grateful for the company I was in and grateful as well to have an abundance of food when so many don't have enough. It was very salty and not very tasty otherwise, however. It's usually a lot better. I don't really care though. We fuss a lot about all the good things we'll be eating because in many ways Thanksgiving is a feast day with little other purpose than enjoying an abundance of food, but when it comes down to it, while it may have been disappointing culinarily, it doesn't matter at all. We were together, warm, happy and no one went hungry, even the guy who will only eat the chips, rolls and jell-o. ;)

Definitely not! Son smoked his famous turkey, and I savored ever single bite. His wife prepared the rest and she is a fabulous cook. Had Thanksgiving on SUnday, due to grandson going into the Navy, on Monday.

Not at all disappointed, and that is a compliment to the cooks at Cracker Barrel! We ran away from home on Tuesday and planned to be traveling Thanksgiving Day. We stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Meadville, PA at 2pm. The place was packed but we were seated within 5 minutes, ordered, served, ate, browsed a little in the gift shop paid our bill and was back on the road in exactly 1 hour. The Thanksgiving Dinner on the menu included all the expected sides and dessert that you would expect at most home cooked Thanksgiving Dinners for 10.99. It was very good. As Arlo Guthrie would say, "we had a Thanksgiving Dinner that couldn't be beat"!

Marilyn Sue, you had this to say in the gift thread, and I agree. And a carefully prepared meal (lasagna properly made takes a LOT of time) is a gift to those served, so I hope the son appreciated the lasagna and appreciated the care package from you as well.

" I think if you receive a homemade or store bought gift it should be received with the way it was intended, to make you happy."

I am sure my son was gracious about the meal. I sort of think it was a frozen dinner though. Had they came to our family meal he had asked if he could take some to go boxes of food for the Grandmother and we told him of course.

Sue

MY 'free range organic' chicken (5 1/2 lbs.) was really great. Different and thought about how unusual not having that 'turkey smell' at dinner. Sides were all those carbs, altho I do manage to chip away at sugar and fats and it all went well. Looking forward to leftovers this evening.

I wouldn't mind a Thanksgiving dinner of fried chicken and all the other goodies. That is my favorite meal! Yours was probably a roasted one. Not the same.

Sue

I'll play along. I used a store bought gravy which I use every year. For some reason is stayed thick. Maybe I didn't heat it long enough?

Interesting how some have different tradition. A good friend never has turkey on Thanksgiving. Yesterday she had meatballs and pasta. Today I gave her some turkey and she is having it tonight, so it's not that they don't eat turkey.

Maybe if your son knew he was getting lasagna, but to anticipate a turkey dinner and then get lasagna, can be a downer.

My Mother never cooked a turkey. She always roasted a big old roasting hen.

Growing up we never had turkey! Neither did my Grandma. I really don't remember what we would have as I don't think we really celebrated Thanksgiving much. Maybe we had chicken and noodles. We all loved that.

Sue

Well after dumping a pumpkin pie and having to clean up oven and do another one, the meal and day turned out great!

Thanksgiving dinner was at SIL's parents. We were just about to serve our plates when SIL passed out cold. DD and his DB caught him before he hit the floor. His DB is a third year med student so that made me feel better. He came around pretty quickly but had no idea what had happened. He thought he had just been asleep. They tested his blood sugar since he has type 1 diabetes. It was fine. His stomach had been out of sort for a few days and he hadn't had much to eat or drink so we think he was dehydrated. He also has an infection on his hand. Anyway picture of hand and detail of the event were sent to the doctor and she has called in an antibiotic. He is feeling better today.

After all that the food was not our focus at all. We had something much more important to be thankful for.

We didn't do so many high carb/sweet foods this year. DD was recently diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease and is gluten free, carb free, dairy free, etc. We had one sweet dessert and dressing. Roasted broccoli, cauliflower, and peppers on one tray and roasted butternut squash, sweet potatoes and carrots on another. With a few other sides that DD could eat.

Not at all disappointed in the food. We had an antipasto bar, a fruit bar, a salad bar, a sushi bar, a pasta station. Crab, shrimp, mussels on ice. Roast turkey, flank steak in some kind of sauce (didn't try it), prime rib and ham at a carving station + all the sides, breads rolls. The mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing wonderful, the turkey itself maybe a little dry. Prime rib was amazing.

For the first time ever, we ate out. It was all we could think of to do so that we could include my nephew and his family (north) and not make too long of a day for my mother who recently moved into independent living (south), made buffet reservations at a resort in between (in between our 4 separate cities). We booked a small conference room (much cheaper than one of their large hotel suites) for after the meal, and streamed some football, played games and cards, did some catching up. All in all it worked out pretty well. But we have no leftovers ;(

We've been so busy, the break was nice. We started downsizing Moms things in August, emptied the house & got her moved the end of Sept, spent as much time helping her get settled and socializing a little in her new environment as we could while running back and forth to her former city doing some updating, repairs to her house so we could list it for sale for her.

She signed papers for closing/transfer of title on Wednesday, her money is to be wired to her bank today - it's sold, and I can't begin to describe what a relief that is.

We'll have more our typical Christmas when those who couldn't be away overnight this weekend will have more time. It will be more relaxed, the food not nearly so varied ;)

I fixed a fresh turkey, and it got done a little early before I was ready with everything else. Fresh turkeys will do that. We start the celebration with champagne as we finish the cooking and chat. The white meat was great while it was hot, and everyone said the 14 pound turkey was the best ever. However, as the meat cooled off, I could tell my serving of white meat had roasted a little too long. But cranberry relish and gravy took care of that. I guess the dark meat was perfect. We cut back on the number of side dishes with only 7 of us this year. Next year we will be ll, and I can add another side dish. We had turkey, stuffing, homemade gravy, homemade fresh cranberry relish sauce, candied sweet potatoes, twice baked potatoes, fresh green beans with toasted almonds, mincemeat peach halves, pumpkin bread, homemade yeast rolls, wine, and homemade banana cream pie. We were stuffed!

And thank goodness for my aching back, the kids did most of the clean up. My DIL baked the rolls, and my sister made the green beans here and brought along the banana cream pie. A good division of work.

Imgd glad you had a good experience at cracker barrel we didn't. We were supposed to go to a different restaurant but that didn't work out so instead we went to cracker barrel. We waited till 2 pm to try to avoid the noon rush but the wait time was over an hour, every place to sit down and wait was filled it was standing room only and I can't stand. They also had a special where you could order the same meal to go with no wait. We chose to do that. We got apple pie. The turkey and ham was ok but dry. It was supposed to have sweet potatoes and dressing and you pick a side I specifically asked if it came with any other potatoes like mashed, he said no so we chose mashed potatoes and gravy. Well unfortunately there was not a bit of sweet potatoes but there was some kind of potatoes like hash browns, and there was cornbread dressing extremely dry. About a tablespoon of gravy on the turkey. A tiny bit of cranberry sauce and a piece of cornbread. So we had 2 potatoes, none sweet, cornbread dressing and a piece of cornbread, nothing like all carbs! Thank goodness it wasn't very expensive. If I had waited an hour for it I really would have been upset. I was really surprised because cracker barrel is usually pretty decent. It was wall to wall people and the employees were so confused and overwhelmed. I felt sorry for them. One young man who was supposed to be off was being forced to work a double shift because they were so short handed. Oh and the bottom crust of the pie was like raw dough ick.

At least we had a meal!

We decided to pay a first time visit to a Cracker Barrel during a trip to the South not too many years ago. The food we had was greasy, salty and not very tasty. I can't say I'd want to try it again.

Yes and no. I cooked everything but the turkey the day before and sent it to my mom's house with my sister since I had to work. When I got there...no food was left everyone else split up the leftovers and took them home because my father HATES leftovers and he said he didn't want to take the chance if me leaving any so he and my mom gave it to my siblings instead. However my beloved mother managed to salvage a whole homemade pumpkin pie for me and that was my dinner. My favorite thing about thanksgiving is moms pumpkin pie. Don't you love a happy ending?

We were invited to our DIL's eldest sister's home for dinner. DIL's whole family *COOK*, and her sister's DH is a trained chef. Everything was very good -- a little too 'gourmet' for me, The Queen of Bland. haha Best was dessert: Two pies baked by our DGS (10), one chocolate and one apple-pear-cranberry; and one lemon pie baked by our hostess.

There is a small turkey breast in my oven this very minute! LOL

lgmd -- One of my father's brother's family lived/lives(?) in Meadville, PA. I bet it's 50 years since I visited though.

Italians are noted for Lasagna and Fish on holidays

We were supposed to go to a relative's for Thanksgiving dinner, but because of an unexpected illness, the dinner was canceled at the last minute. So, Hubs and I went to Marie Callender's. We'd gone there for Thanksgiving with family once before (years ago when no one felt like cooking) and the food was wonderful.

This year, however, we were disappointed. We were seated within 10 minutes, so that wasn't an issue, and we were served our food quickly. But there wasn't any cranberry sauce (which was supposed to be included), and the yams were very dry and lacked the "cranberry streusel topping." The turkey and stuffing were very good, and the mashed potatoes and gravy were okay, too. The vegetables were baby carrots and over-cooked green beans. The pumpkin pie was very good. For $20 each it was ok, but nothing to write home about.

(I would have asked our server for cranberry sauce but by the time she came around again, I was nearly done eating, so it wasn't worth it.)

The kids and I went to Bonefish grill last Saturday for our dinner. They liked their meal, I didn't like mine. Yesterday we had a pot luck lunch/dinner/every time you got a minute break stuff your face some more....meal at work and most of it was good. I brought ready made mashed potatoes that I didn't care for, but they were all eaten, both containers for the most part. Someone also brought a crock pot apple "cake" that was a pile of mush. I couldn't eat it, others loved it. It wasn't so much the taste as the watery mush feel in my mouth. And it looked like someone had already eaten it once...lol.

Warning: Long story :)

We ate at my older sister's as we've done every year. She invites her own siblings and sibling-in-laws & their families. Although, we're Asians, we always had turkey because the kids wanted an American Thanksgiving traditional dinner, and so do I.

My siblings don't cook American food. So for years, I've been cooking all the side dishes and my sister would serve the turkeys. She doesn't cook it either but that's alright because the precook turkeys are just as tasty.

One year, my mom stayed with me during the Thanksgiving week. A day or two ahead, I've requested mom to stay out of the kitchen when I had to prepare all the side dishes. She agreed to leave me alone. The day before Thanksgiving, I began to prepare the food. Mom broke her agreement. She was constantly interfering to a point that I couldn't concentrate on what I needed to do. I called my sister to help me taking mom out of the house. My sister took it the wrong way and ever since, she stopped asking me to make the side dishes. She thought it made me stressed out. Instead, she asked her sister-in-laws to make them. Her sister-in-law doesn't cook much so, she asked her teenage kids to make them. Well, the dishes were okay but far from being traditional dishes.

This year, to my surprise, my sister asked me to make 2 side dishes: Green beans casserole and mashed potatoes. I was happy to and agreed.

In these recent years, I haven't cook much American food. Oh my, I've forgotten how well I can cook (not a pro but good enough). I even made 3 Style Cranberries Relish.

Thanksgiving afternoon: I packed up all the food in a box and headed over to my sister's. When I arrived, my nephew helped me to bring in the food box.

Then, my sister-in-law arrived. This was her first time to come for Thanksgiving because in the past years, her husband (my brother) always refused to join with my sister's in-laws. They're sort of an ignorant couple, my brother & his wife that is. So, without discussing with the hostess, she brought potato salad and caramel custard for desserts. I heard my sister, the hostess, saying: "Oh No!" as in "too many potato dishes". Also, my sister (the hostess) has a bakery. Desserts have always been her & her husband's pleasure to serve us. We always looked forward for their Sweet Potato Pies. We, the guests, always knew not to bring desserts as it'd be a gesture of being competitive. So, that was a second "Oh no!" for the caramel custard.

15 minutes before eating, we couldn't find my box of food. Asked my nephew and he couldn't remember that he carried the food in. I think he had a couple of mixed drinks and wasn't filling himself. After a few minutes, he remembered. He left it out on the patio! My food was served cold because there was no time to reheat them. Well yes, I was disappointed as they weren't served properly. But hey, I didn't want to let my disappointment ruin the party.

All-in-all, I had a wonderful time as usual.

I was able to bring some leftovers home and that was today's dinner. It was a wonderful meal which made up for yesterday's disappointment. I had the Turkey, my side dishes (all reheated) and 3 style cranberries relish. Mmm-mmm good!

No complaints here. Its hard to talk with your mouth full.

ntt_hou, I'm sorry, but I enjoyed reading that ;) I have to guess that Thanksgiving would be a difficult meal to prepare for those not used to cooking American food.

Sometimes I think we should compile a list of our holiday dinner misses and not just the successes. We've all got a turkey story, or mishap of some kind that affects the rest of the meal - I can't think of a family who couldn't contribute ;)

Absolutely not disappointed in the meal I had.

Disappointed however that I've had to spend the weekend home alone instead of joining with others -- both T-day itself and a post-T-Day party I was supposed to go to an hour and a half away from here today -- no one lives close enough to provide a ride and besides right now I'd need some ADA accessibility.

So I made sure I cooked stuff I like and that was seasonal, and that I didn't watch football (truth to tell, most of my friends don't, either). And that I called my wonderful brother half the country away from here, and some other friends from hither and yon.

I will be getting out later this morning -- a friend is giving me a ride to the bank, and maybe a farmer's market nearby if they are indeed open today.

The rice stuffing I make (my Mom's recipe) turned out far blander and "mushier" than when my Mom has made it. I suspect she left a couple of ingredients off the recipe that she gave me.

ravencajun, so sorry to see that Cracker Barrel was such a disappointment. To be honest, I was surprised at how well our visit turned out to be. The atmosphere when we went in was chaotic. The items for the Thanksgiving Dinner was listed as, turkey, ham, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole topped with pecans, green beans, whole cranberry sauce, cornbread and/or biscuits pumpkin pie and a drink all for 10.99. All of that was brought to our table in record time, I thought, and was hot and good. Not exactly "homemade" good, but certainly not disappointing.

For Thanksgiving we hosted my sister, my brother, his wife and their son. I was disappointed that their daughter was unable to attend, but she was with her long-term boyfriend and his family, so it's understandable. My nephew brought his PS4 and a newly released game named "Fallout 4", which my niece spent the last year or so working on, so she was there in spirit at least.

The meal itself was mostly great. The turkey was the best I have ever made, the mushroom gravy was outstanding, the sausage stuffing brought back memories of childhood Thanksgiving since it was our mother's recipe.

The minor disappointments in the meal were the broccoli/cauliflower casserole which was slightly dried out and slightly under-cooked (I don't think anyone else noticed), the mashed potatoes (with sweet potatoes and yukon gold potatoes) was ok, but was missing something.

The best part was that my brother's family was able to arrive on Wednesday afternoon, and stay until Friday evening, so it was a great, low-key, couple of days of family fun.

We couldn't have our traditional crab this year because of high toxin level in the local crab. No crab fishing has been allowed. So, we had a duck, sweet potatoes and green bean casserole. We cooked a turkey breast Friday, so we still get the turkey sandwiches.... on white bread, of course. An oddity about the turkey breast is that it is cooked frozen. It is the moistest white meat I've ever had.

Golfergrrl, the Tribal fishery started here and a friend brought 30 live to the house Tuesday night....that I didn't need for our holiday but had them take up an evening anyway ;) The cooking (outside over gas), the backing and cleaning, having people stop over to pick theirs up and staying to visit, or delivering it....

I'm not quite understanding the boundaries, why just one ocean area right outside would have safe crab, but the tribal fishery got the OK to fish it. I can't think why the crab would know which lines not to scuttle across, I know they move around ;) It was very good, not toxic.

My disappointment was that we didn't have that roasting turkey smell. I love to smell the turkey roasting in the oven. This year our son did the cooking outside in some type of gadget. It was ok . I missed the food smells. But I will get over it. All we had to do was set the table and that went well. His fiance did all the cooking early in the day and brought it all over to our home. It was a nice day for all. They also did the cleanup too. We had a wonderful day. Hope everyone else did too.

The feast this year was exceptional; everything turned out like it was "supposed" to and we enjoyed it all. Followed Ina Garten's turkey prep directions by putting pats of butter under the breast skin and then rubbing breast with olive oil and s & p; stuffed it with lemon, onion and orange chunks. No basting. It was phenomenal! And easy. In fact, I think I'll heat some up right now!