A few weeks ago, the Her Campus staff at Bradley began talking about all things Thanksgiving when we realized we were not on the same page. Foods, activities and even conversations varied between all of our families and we felt it was necessary to hash it all out here. Publicly. Online. Obviously. Some of our writers have shared their Thanksgiving Traditions below. Keep reading to see where we found our differences!
Alivia Adkins
My annual Thanksgiving tradition used to consist of an extremely large family gathering, probably over 100 of my family members. Once COVID erupted and my family suffered some losses, our tradition turned to smaller gatherings. Now, it looks like my family and I (mom, dad, and brother), my grandparents and my mom’s siblings (2) and their families. Sometimes, we have a few other family members join us. We have a large food buffet filled with all of the typical Thanksgiving foods – turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, rolls, etc. We play different games designed as tournaments and have lots of cocktails. This year is going to look a lot different. This year, my parents and I are going down to Nashville on Thanksgiving. I’m moving there so we’re going to search for an apartment. It definitely won’t be the typical Thanksgiving, but it will be one to remember.
Josie Smith
In my lifetime, my family’s Thanksgiving traditions have evolved many times. We used to host Thanksgiving with my immediate family, my grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins. That ended up being 16 people give or take a few each year. However, we kind of stopped doing that after my aunt was responsible for the turkey and she brought a frozen turkey. In more recent years it’s just been my mom, sister, grandma and me. We make enough food for all of us and around three days of leftovers. My grandma and sister like turkey while my mom and I like ham, so we get a small one of each to avoid wasting a whole turkey and ham. Obviously 2020 wasn’t normal, so our Thanksgiving had to be different. Last year we ordered meals from Thunder Bay Grill. It was all the good food with none of the work. In the non-food portion of Thanksgiving we chill out all day and my mom and I cook dinner. Afterwards, we clear the table and pull out the newspaper ads and start sorting. We drink sparkling cider and plan our Black Friday route, it’s essentially Black Friday Pregame (kid friendly). Truthfully, I really like how our traditions have evolved to be so much more laid back. As Thanksgiving 2021 approaches, I can’t say I know what this year will hold, but I’ll enjoy whatever it ends up being – as long as we have green bean casserole.
Anna Brandon
Thanksgiving for my family isn’t too different from others, I’m sure. My grandma, most years, cooked for us while we all sat in the living room watching the Thanksgiving football games. While we watched the games and waited for my grandma to be finished, she always had the appetizers sat out for us because we all would like to pick out some of the food she was cooking. My brothers (2) and I love the sandwich crackers with Ritz, cheese and hard salami! My grandma always made sure she had one side food that everyone favorited. Mine is and always will be mashed potatoes or deviled eggs. Once my grandma has everything put out and ready, we have the kids – so myself, my brothers, and cousins – go first and then the adults. Instead of eating at a dining table, we all gather in the living room and sit wherever is open and watch the current football game (this is really where the prime start of my football knowledge came from). After we are all finished eating, we, of course, go straight to the pies. That’s basically how my Thanksgiving went in previous years. However, since COVID, my grandma has been having a hard time with her health. So this year will be a little different with us meeting at All Saints, a buffet restaurant, and then going to my grandparent’s home to watch some football games.
Kaia Wolfe
For me, my family and I have very odd traditions. Half of us are vegetarian and the other half is vegan. Except my grandma who eats meat. We have to have so much food because no one eats the same thing. We normally have at least a week of leftovers which is insane! My family likes to have some type of fish instead of turkey. We tend to still have potatoes and cornbread but other than that we don’t really have the traditional foods.
Also, my uncle and family have been coming in the last few years so it’s also why we have so much food afterwards. We like to play board or card games after the meal. It’s very rare where we have a lot of people to play games with. Another thing that’s really fun is that it’s normally the females that cook the meals but this year my brother said he would help, so I’m excited about that.
We also always talk about memories and other holidays. Normally my mom and my uncle talk about random things from their childhood and it’s normally the same stories over and over again. I never remember them because I can’t remember which one is which! They also always make the cousins take a picture and update of how we are doing. Every year we take a picture of the three of us doing something really random and funny. Last year, my brother and I picked up my cousin like a bride and it made a great photo!
Allison Nick
Thanksgiving in my family is fairly small, but we like it that way. A 4-person meal is a nice change from our 50-person Christmas. My dad cooks a classic Thanksgiving meal of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and green bean casserole, while my mom makes a delicious cranberry sauce that pairs beautifully with warm rolls. Because our Thanksgiving is so small, there were a few years growing up where we invited sailors from the Great Lakes Naval Base into our home. While the recruits are training, they rarely get to visit home, and unless their families were local, they were not able to leave for the holiday. So the Naval Base created a program where you could “adopt” a sailor (or a few) for the day. My dad would pick them up early in the morning and we would spend all day playing games, having push-up contests (spoiler alert: they won) or just getting to know them.
When it’s just the four of us, Thanksgiving feels like just another day but with a fancier meal. We tend to eat dinner early and hunker down to watch football for the rest of the evening. The perk of eating early is that when all is said and done, whenever you need a snack for the rest of the evening, you get a cold turkey sandwich – delicious!
Becky Rose
I have a small family to spend Thanksgiving with because a lot of them live in Tennessee, so we try to make the most of it. Like many other families, we have a ton of appetizers that include our family dips with chips, cheese and crackers, and some veggies. I mostly stuff myself with appetizers because they’re delicious, so when it comes to dinner and dessert, I have to stuff myself to the brim because in my family, no food gets left behind! Our most loved dishes are the turkey, obviously, and the GRAVY. We literally soak up the last bit of gravy and we fight over how much each of us get throughout the meal so we all get our fair share. My least favorite dish that my mom insists on bringing every year are canned cranberries. No one likes canned cranberries.
For dessert, we have tons and tons of pie, thanks to my grandma, cookies, and whatever else we bring to the table. I say that I can’t eat anything else, but I somehow find a way to eat at least a little bit of each thing (goodbye diet). While we are all full and can’t move, we sit around the table and play our traditional game of Michigan Rummy with super old playing cards and game board from my great aunt and uncle. With the game of Michigan Rummy, we gamble away pennies (I know we’re cheap) and try to win the most money at the end. The game gets super rowdy by the end because we can become very competitive.
Finally, we have everyone over AGAIN for leftovers, where my mom makes us finish everything so she doesn’t have to put anything back in the fridge. After our leftover dinner, we play a traditional game of Pit. Now, the game Pit gets so crazy because it literally requires everyone to shout out random cards we need. We get so tired of yelling at each other where we have to play silent Pit, where we hold up fingers and use hand gestures. Thanksgiving is so fun for me and my family because we get to have a break from our normal lives and just play games together and eat delicious food.
Grace Oatman
I have a pretty big family; in the past this has meant many Thanksgiving meals for the Oatmans. Over the years we have narrowed down the number of Thanksgivings we went to to only two or three. One of the meals we have consistently had over the years was at my maternal grandmother’s house (Kathy). At this gathering, we have my family, all but one of my mom’s siblings (3), their families, my grandma, some of her siblings and their families.
One enjoyable activity this side of my family has always done is playing the card game Pitch. We have Pitch tournaments almost every year at Thanksgiving, along with other board games after dinner. This has become such a strong tradition in our family because through each generation, everyone learned to play Pitch at family holidays and at family reunions (these occur every other summer for a week out of state with extended family). We all know the feeling of learning to play by joining the tournaments surrounded by older family members. Most times they are helpful, but things tend to get very intense and competitive. I attribute this to no one in our family being an only child and all of us having multiple cousins similar in age to us.
My family is very tight knit, and I hope to take the values that come along with this into my adulthood. I also can’t wait to teach my kids how to play Pitch, it’s a right of passage at this point. It’s also pretty fun once you get the hang of it.
Kylie Kruis
My Thanksgiving is fairly similar every year despite not having any set-in-stone traditions. It’s usually a small dinner with the family who lives near us, which is different from our larger Christmas celebrations where we have a lot of family who come to visit from out of state. We watch football and catch up with one another on everything that’s going on since it’s one of the only times we all get together during the year. Because of that, it’s never anything that’s overwhelmingly exciting, which all of us enjoy since it’s the beginning of the holiday season.
Whoever is hosting that year is in charge of making the turkey for everyone, but the rest of the family chooses sides to bring along. Everyone is asked to bring at least one thing, but a lot of us end up bringing multiple side dishes that we use for appetizers, sides and desserts. All of us have extremely full plates before we eat together and there is always enough for almost everyone to bring home a healthy amount of leftovers (hopefully there is enough for me to bring some food back with me so I can have actual food in the room). Because everyone is in charge of sides, there is never the same spread two years in a row other than the classics of mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls and cranberries. After we eat, we all plan out what we’re hunting for during our Black Friday adventures and begin to plan out who will host our Christmas since there will be a lot more people and a lot more food for our two day Christmas celebration. Our Christmas preparations always have to begin that night so things will be set before everything gets stressful. Once all of that is said and done, we just wind down together and continue to catch up with the endless drama we seem to all always have, and turn on a movie to watch as we please. In the end, we all leave happy and full, thankful to see everyone and catch up.
Katelyn Hampton
My Thanksgiving traditions have changed and evolved over the years, but one thing has remained the same- I always spend the day with family. I have a pretty large family, so we always have lots of family to visit (and meals to eat!) During a ‘typical’ Thanksgiving holiday, we have dinner the weekend before Thanksgiving with my Mom’s side of the family. Then on Thanksgiving Day, my great aunt’s house for lunch, followed by visiting all my different family members, and usually ending with leftover turkey sandwiches at my grandparents house. I have distinct memories of waking up to the smell of pumpkin pie. Last year, due to COVID, instead of my parents, my sister, and I running around to see all of my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, we spent the holiday with just the four of us. My mom cooked the entire, amazing Thanksgiving dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes, macaroni-corn casserole, green bean casserole, cranberries and, of course, the pumpkin pie. This year, I’m not sure what all will be in store, but I am really excited to spend the holiday with my family, no matter how big or small of a celebration it may be.
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Do your traditions sound like our writers’? Do you have traditions that are completely unique? Visit @HCBradleyU on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter to let us know how you celebrate!