Thanksgiving Smörgåsbord

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Can you believe it's almost Thanksgiving?! I can't...seriously. Because that means I've been married 10 days now and I just can't bring myself to believe it. Where has the week gone?!

Life at home has slowed, but only by a bit. The last of our England family is off back home today and we'll miss everyone very much. It was so nice to sneak in a little bit more time together! Hopefully, it won't be too long before we can visit again. There's rumors floating around about a family reunion in 2011...some lovely, sunny destination, too. Now, wouldn't that be something? One can certainly hope!

Over dinner at my in-laws last night, we got to talking about an American's traditional Thanksgiving. My new (British) "uncle-in-law" asked me to tell him everything our Thanksgiving entailed. Now that is a fun question to answer and it helped me really start to crave Momma's Thanksgiving meal! (yeah, Momma is still cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year. What a bad wife I am...next year is mine, though, I swear!)

So, back to the question of what makes up my traditional Thanksgiving meal. It only took a couple minutes to recite nearly every yummy morsel (with the Mr. in the background shouting out, "Did you remembers" at me.) What fun!

Then all of that Thanksgiving talk got me thinking today...Thanksgiving traditions are different for every family all over the States. Some have corn bread pudding and pecan pie, others might smoke or deep fry a turkey. Next year, Thanksgiving will be mine to host, but I want to take the opportunity to both pay homage to my traditions and start a few new ones while I'm at it!

Here's what we have every year:

· oven-baked turkey
· Stauffer's stuffing (cooked inside the bird and with additional ingredients...Momma doesn't do giblets!)
· mashed potatoes and Momma's famous gravy
· sweet potatoes (normally without marshmallows)
· Sissy's green bean casserole
· cranberry sauce (I like it from the can, still in gelatinous can-shape, others fresh...so there's normally both)
· some veggies (carrots, corn and/or broccoli)
· some type of salad
· baked bread rolls
· pumpkin pie w/ whipped cream
· normally at least one other dessert, usually changes year-to-year

So...which of your Thanksgiving faves are missing from my list - or - if your list looks like mine, what is your absolute favorite part of a Thanksgiving meal? I hope to glean some new, fun and tasty traditions from your suggestions!