Of course I have! And as a devoted vegan, I can tell you...it's f'ing disgusting. I'm not gonna lie to you.
My bff says it's amazing, but it kind of looks gross, and I've never been with her for thanksgiving to try it. Anyway, I also wanted to say that I am really thankful for all of you. I have at least somewhat turned the corner (for now) towards advice giving (hopefully some of it good) more than receiving, but over the last year+ so many of you have been there when I really needed someone who understood what I was going through and could relate to me. I know we don't really know each other, but I think about you all and hope for you and worry for/about you just like people I do know in person. Whether you celebrate a thanksgiving today or another day, know that you were in my thoughts today as part of what I'm most thankful for.
Heh. I've been a vegetarian for 23 years with some vegan phases here and there. I've had some Tofurky occasionally over the years. I'll eat it, but I'm not really into it.
Well, I made it through Thanksgiving. My EC family was a big help. I wish you all the best of holidays!
Hope you guys all had a happy turkey day! I went to the Macy's parade for the first time! It wasn't too cold out, so it was pretty nice. We weren't up front so seeing the marching bands and such was hard, but we saw the balloons perfectly and got some awesome pictures! Then visited my grandpa in the hospital. Sadly found out he has cancer...I spent a bit of time as an emotional mess because of this, but he's a fighter even at 80. I'm keeping up hope. And then dinner with the "in-laws." It was nice...okay, I spent too much time checking out my wife's brother's girlfriend's brother, but it's not my fault he's hot. Haha.
Mine was....interesting. My aunt hosts it and it's usually her whole family (her 6 sons, their wives and something like 17 grandchildren), and whoever of my family can make it - usually my brother and his wife and 3 kids, sister and husband and 2 kids, and my other sister and some subset of her 6 kids). A very packed house. This was my first year without my ex-wife, without my daughters (both out of town on a school trip), and WITH my boyfriend. My cousins and siblings were all genuinely friendly and sociable. No problems there at all, although I realized just how much I had relied on my ex to be the social butterfly, since I hate groups of people (even cousins I truly like but see only once a year). My aunt greeted us with "So, this is the boyfriend?" and asked what my ex-wife was doing, and was surprised (and clearly a little disappointed and disapproving) that she wasn't there too. (She actually had 4 or 5 offers and very dramatically told everyone she was going to stay home in her pajamas and make a pizza. She's very skilled at playing for sympathy.) Later she asked me more about what my ex was up to and seemed truly concerned about her, made the statement that she "didn't have a problem with homosexuality but she did have a problem with infidelity". (Although my wife and I functioned as roommates who disliked each other for about 10 years, that's not common knowledge, and I met my bf after I had told her I was gay and the marriage was over, but before I actually filed.) I had forgotten just how judgmental she can be. The rest of the day was nice, although far more full of social interaction than either of us were comfortable with, but those stinging remarks cast a shadow on the whole thing for me. Lots of Tylenol in my system today. Too early to determine what we'll do for next year, but the way I feel today, if my ex wants to take the kids and go, I'd be happy to serve food in a shelter or something.
Sorry to hear about your aunt, Choirboy. Depending on how close you feel to her, and how much you want the relationship to continue, you should perhaps think about broaching the subject with her again, in private, telling her everything you told us. If she then refuses to apologize, I would think seriously about ever darkening her doorstep again (though this might also bring about a breach with the cousins). ---------- Post added 27th Nov 2015 at 01:13 PM ---------- I had a great day yesterday, on my own. Since I grew up in Canada, American Thanksgiving is just not that big a deal for me. Nevertheless, it was the first one in thirty years I've spent without my family around me. My wife is in Italy, my daughter in Iraq, and my son on an island — local, but accessible only by ferry. So I decided to take a hike. The weather was perfect — cold, blue skies, a dusting of snow on the mountaintops. I climbed 4000 feet to an abandoned lookout, encountering no more than a dozen other hikers all day. When I got home, I cooked myself a modest meal of salmon, salad and homemade ice-cream and washed it all down with a bottle of prosecco. When I went to bed — probably for the first time on Thanksgiving — I was not in a food coma. I did actually have a couple of last-minute invitations to dinner, but this was my plan and I followed through on it. I hope everyone else enjoyed the day as much as I did!
My Thanksgiving was pretty uneventful. I did get--and accepted--an invitation for dinner at a neighbor's, which was nice, although it may be the fastest dinner on record. One of the families attending wanted to get to a Thanksgiving sale to grab some door buster deal. Thanksgiving used to be about giving thanks. Now, I guess it's a two part holiday: eat a big dinner to get the fuel needed to shop 'til you drop, starting later in the day. :dry: ---------- Post added 27th Nov 2015 at 04:14 PM ---------- I've spent my whole life here (most of it here in WA), and never even visited Canada. That said...Thanksgiving is not a hugely important holiday for me. I like the idea of a holiday of thanks. But I never have been wild about the standard dinner. I don't actively hate it, but, at the same time, it's not really something I'd choose to make on a special occasion. Then, there may be some history at work... We had a tradition growing up of having Thanksgiving with a family we knew, and it was one of those traditions that probably lasted too long. I certainly know my mother felt way, although she never actively pushed to pull the plug. We had to have them on our year to host, because we owed them, and then we had to attend the years they hosted because they'd be cooking dinner. An endless cycle that might never have ended... After my family imploded, my mother and I just pulled the plug on normal Thanksgivings for a period. We might have made something non-traditional some years. A couple of years, we just celebrated the night before by going to our favorite Chinese restaurant. We frankly didn't miss the big turkey dinner in the least.
