Tradition be damned!

Fluffy mashed potatoes with garlic and butter. Dripping gravy over a big turkey bird. Stuffing WITHOUT celery pieces. Personally I prefer Stove Top but my mother in law insists on homemade with celery. Gigantic vegetable plate with dip. Homemade rolls with jam or preserves. Mounds of buttered corn and broccoli. There may be yams covered with marshmallows but they must be on the other side of the table. Pumpkin pie with whipping cream and ice cream. Of course, pecan pie heated with ice cream on the side.

Mmmmm. Mmmmm. This is Thanksgiving to me. After the trip to the zoo. Ever since I was young and living in Illinois our family has taken a family outing to the zoo on Thanksgiving day. “Because we are thankful for the animals too.” Technically I think it is because we have always lived away from both parental families and so had to come up with something to do. (Translation: My Dad does not watch football.) Soon we had several families that also could not go over the river and through the woods for the day who would accompany us on our annual zoo outing. It was always a fun time. Now that we live in SLC the home of all mormon parental units including Bart, mine, my mothers, and my fathers it has been a little harder to push this family tradition. (Translation: My husband does watch football.) Mostly through stubbornness on the Solomon children’s part, we have managed to have a lot of “thankful” gatherings right there at the Hogle Zoo. Rain or shine. Snow or sleet. Construction or not.

This year we are going to the zoo. But it is a weird year. For several years we have had Thanksgiving at my house with Bart’s family. This year Karlee and the Zollingers are in Korea and my parents will just be getting back from Korea the day before the bird day. We are combining the two families giving us a healthy number of 17 eaters. We (that means the women who do all the kitchen work) decided to have Thanksgiving at a restaurant. There have been many mutinous stares and murmurings from the men but it is just one year and if it doesn’t seem right and thankful enough we will have another dinner on Saturday. Yes, I know we will not use our little pilgrim place settings and we will not be able to have the homemade stuffing with celery but I promise all who read this that I will still buy a Costco pumpkin and pecan pie and stock up on whipping cream and ice cream……so let the thankfulness begin!