This coming Thursday is Thanksgiving in the U.S. There’s a lot of baggage related to this holiday, and rightly so, but for my immediate family this has morphed into our big yearly get together. It’s sort of a small gathering for us, my wife & kids and my sister in-law and her family all converge on our house for about 5 days around the holiday and we just hang out and enjoy each other’s company. We do partake of a traditional-ish Thanksgiving dinner and often others show up for dessert. We do avoid any idolatry of “pilgrims” and fortunately all of us are of similar political persuasion so that specter doesn’t haunt the family time for us. There will be a turkey cooked on a charcoal grill (indirect heat, approx 15 minutes per pound, start cooking it breast down on a rack over a drip pan, flip to breast up after about the first 90 minutes and it browns up really nicely). Mashed potatoes, dressing (stuffing, just not cooked inside the bird), cranberry relish and maybe canned sauce too because why not?, some kind of creative sweet potato dish, and often one or more of the kids will have some dish they want to cook too. Dessert is classic pumpkin pie, apple pie, pecan pie, and other treats. Visitors bring treats and again at least one of the kids will have something up their sleeve. It’s definitely a time I appreciate and look forward to. We hang out around the fireplace and go out for excursions and just generally relax and have fun.

Do you have a favorite holiday? What’s the big feast day holiday in your culture (it seems to me that most cultures have some kind of harvest/gratitude holiday)?