Episode 124: Thanksgiving Traditions New & Old

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

thanksgiving, year, tradition, people, christmas, hear, fall festival, wishbone, family, pumpkin, decorate, eat, country, set, thankfulness, kids, table, entryway, green bean casserole, settlers

SPEAKERS

Ashley Peebles, Lindsey Litton

Lindsey Litton  00:07

Welcome to the mill housing nation podcast where we bring you stories from real military spouses who have been in your shoes. From New spouses to veteran spouses. You’ll get tips, tricks, and actionable steps that can help you along your military life journey. This episode is brought to you by armed forces insurance. Armed Forces insurance offers personal insurance options specifically designed for military families. To learn more, visit them online@asi.org or give him a call at 1-800-313-1936. Now, here’s Ashley people’s

Ashley Peebles 

Welcome, welcome. Welcome, everyone to the Milhousing Nation Podcast. I’m so glad that you joined me today, or should I say, I’m so thankful that you join me today because today, we are going to talk about Thanksgiving. And I’m sure there’s lots of podcasts out there talking about Thanksgiving, since it’s this time of year. But really, I just wanted to go over some of the awesome things that you can do this year to create some new family traditions. Because I love family traditions. And as my kids get older, they appreciate them more, and I appreciate them more. And there’s certain things that we put in place early on, that I’m so thankful that we did. But no matter how old your kids are, no matter how old you are, it’s never too late to start some new things giving traditions. So I think most people know this, the origin of thanksgiving dates back to 1621. Had to look that up. So everybody may not know that but to 1621 November 26, to be exact, where the Plymouth colonists and the Native Americans shared an autumn harvest feast. You see the Native Americans taught the settlers, the colonists, how to grow their food, how to catch the fish, how to avoid poisonous fruits, and you know, all of the berries around, and they had their first successful harvest. So they invited the Native Americans over, it actually was a three day feast. So that makes me feel better, because at Thanksgiving every year, we eat Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, so we’re just trying to be like the settlers, we just go, maybe one day overboard. But it was I’m sure incredible, and the things that we can find that are documented about it. It was a time of peace, and thankfulness and sharing a meal with your neighbor, if you will. So even in the middle of the Civil War, President Lincoln that is when he actually declared it a national holiday in the middle of the American Revolution, or I guess right after the American Revolution, George Washington spoke about taking time and taking time setting it aside. To show our thankfulness. It became a national holiday though, during the Civil War declared by President Lincoln. So here are some things these are gonna be like Fast and Furious, because some of them are going to immediately be like, ah, I want to do that or already do that. But then others, I think are some things that you will kind of make you think, if you will. So I scoured the Internet, and I found some of my favorites. Some of these, like I said, you probably already do. Let’s talk about the one that I think everyone does. And that is put your fat pants on. Right? So number one thing that I found was eat, eat, eat, put your fat pants on, like your Joey from friends, and then binge watch TV with your family. Whether it’s Hallmark Christmas movies, whether it’s every episode of friends for Thanksgiving, I saw online that some friends and family do that. Whatever it is, you can absolutely binge watch and put your bat pants on and just take a day of thankfulness and rest. Okay, on the adverse of that what I do in most recent years is I shop till I drop. So my best friend Ellie, and her family come into town. They’re seven of them. There’s four of us. So between the 11 of us, we have a giant family feast. We take lots of pictures, we make so much more food than the 11 of us can eat. But as soon as lunch is over, we get out the the newspapers, the Thanksgiving newspapers, we circled the things that we want an Ellie and I head out with our giant van. And we fill it full of great deals on Black Friday. That’s now what some black Thursday I don’t know. It didn’t used to be the case. We used to start at midnight. But now they backed it up so much that it actually starts at like 3pm on Thanksgiving. On one hand. It’s a travesty. I understand that on one hand, we should not be playing into, like the commercial ism if you will, and the

materialism. But on another hand, it’s just our tradition now, and we love it. And before we would start at midnight, and we would go all night, and then we could not hold our eyes open when it came daylight. But now we’re kind of done by midnight, and we feel old. So we love it. Alright, the next one, try to get the kids involved, whether they make dessert, whether they set the table, whether they make place cards for everyone at the table, get the kids involved, give them some ownership, put them at the table while you’re cooking in the kitchen. Let them hear the awesome conversations, let them hear the giggling, let them smell the food. But give them something that gives them some ownership in the day. Or maybe you plan to have a Thanksgiving dinner late at night, volunteer during the day, volunteer at a soup kitchen, volunteer at a homeless shelter. I don’t want to encourage you to volunteer only once a year. But if you don’t volunteer any other year, maybe Thanksgiving is the time that you show your kids. What it’s like to give back to people that are less fortunate. It’s always something that I’ve thought is an incredible idea. But it does always make me feel more guilty that I don’t do it more often, right? Because I know that the soup kitchens and the homeless shelters have an overwhelming request of people to come in on that one day. And they’re always looking for more help throughout the year. So maybe it’s just something that you put on your mind and on your heart to do more often throughout the year. I don’t do this. I’m not going to do this. But you can do the turkey trots. I want nothing about running on Thanksgiving, I want my fat pants, right. I want to shop till I drop. I don’t want to exercise but lots of people do. And they love it. It’s very famous. There are very old races in this country, where you get up early in the morning and you do the turkey trot, you sweat it out with your family, you wear silly costumes, and then you go and eat your faces off. So maybe that is a new tradition that you want to start. What about a special family recipe that you only break out every year at Thanksgiving, we do this? I think it’s incredible. And it’s always one of my kids favorite parts. We always make certain special things. It’s the only time of year that we have cranberry sauce, right. I mean, maybe it comes directly out of a can but we don’t eat cranberry sauce any other time of the year. We never ever make green bean casserole during regular meals during the year. There’s just certain things that are so Thanksgiving, that you have to have them cliche you’re not you got to have the cranberry sauce and the green bean casserole. But maybe there’s another family special a special family recipe like we do for dessert. This is one of my favorite things that I found online. And it’s to create a keepsake tablecloth of everyone that has graced your Thanksgiving table throughout the years. So I saw a couple of different ways to do this one, they just have a white tablecloth out, everyone signs it each year, or they put a little special message on it each year other people put out the butcher block paper and the kids color all over it on the kids table. But on the adult table. People write blessings for the year. But my favorite one that I found was everyone signs their name in invisible ink. I don’t even know where to get that. But I’m sure somebody smart out there does. they assign it an invisible ink, and then you embroider the name over the top of it. So at the end of the day, you have everyone’s signature. It’s embroidered, and it’s everyone that’s ever graced your Thanksgiving table. It’s something that I’ve never done. But I will be starting this year and I am so excited about it. So there’s somebody out there that just got as excited as I did about that one. Okay, here’s one. Here is a crazy one. It’s a weird one. But I hear that it works. Do you and your family put out a plate of pickles on Thanksgiving? We never have didn’t know that thing. But apparently pickles help with digestion. And there are families all over the country, that it is a Thanksgiving thing to have a plate of pickles sitting out all day because they’re going to eat so much that they’re going to help with digestion. So if that’s you, I would love to hear from you. I would love to hear if it actually works. That was something I’ve never heard of. All right. How about let’s take this in a totally different direction. And for Thanksgiving this year. You maybe have older kids, and maybe they already have plans. Maybe they’re in college and they’re going home with their girlfriend or their boyfriend or they have their own families and they’re not traveling to you this year. Maybe grab your best friend’s couples and take a trip make it less stressful. Or just you could go out to eat there are plenty of amazing restaurants that have almost no weight or they have plenty of availability. When it comes to Thanksgiving. A couple of years ago we flew out to Seattle for Thanksgiving and we had the most delicious meal out. It was perfect. It was special for Thanksgiving Day. And we got to shop. We got to stay in a fancy hotel and we really really enjoyed ourselves. All right here is one that I thought was a really great idea. Let your guests know to be what OC to bring your own container every single year. at Thanksgiving, I run out of Tupperware, I run out of containers to send the leftovers home with the people in so have everyone bring their own brilliant, I thought that was a great idea. If you don’t want to have them bring their own than head to Target or Walmart. Grab one of those boxes that I don’t know 20 bucks, so you’ve got some extra because every year I’m using paper plates with plastic wrap on top. It is inevitably wobbly and I know for sure people have spilled it in their cars. Alright, so here’s some things you can do this year that maybe you’ve not done before. Create a festive entryway and make it your thing they get to where every year you go above and beyond. For your entryway for your steps your front door and you make it feel so autumn harvest Thanksgiving that people can’t wait to get to your house every year to be able to see the way you decorate it. add something new every year become the Thanksgiving door. I think that would be awesome. Maybe if you live somewhere beautiful like San Diego, maybe start a tradition of dining Alfresco dine outside. Maybe that’s the new Thanksgiving thing. I know that a good portion of our country has really chilly Thanksgivings. So if you’re part of the country that has very mild weather, make that your thing. Another thing that I found online was host a Pumpkin Pumpkin picking party. Where you go, you get a whole bunch of pumpkins lay all over the place. Have people pick their own pumpkin, they can carve it, they can paint it. You can play games with it whatever you want. But festive entryway plus a pumpkin picking party. Those two may go together. All right, use the heirloom plates. How many times a year do you get to use grandma’s China? Not very many, right? So break them out for Thanksgiving. And I know no one wants to think about one of them getting broken. But I can only imagine that my grandmother would be happy that they were being used and happy that there was a house full of people and little kids even if one did get broken and probably make her real happy that at least they were out of the chat again. Okay, what about a fall festive, dry or fall festival dry. Maybe you get some gourds and you paint them up and you do a ring toss. Maybe a pumpkin carving contest. Maybe you put pumpkins together and you play bowling with the you set them up, set up the gourds get a pumpkin and then you bowl with them. Think about all of the fall festivals that we all missed this year because of COVID-19. And because of the quarantines set up your own Fall Festival at your house for your guests do Apple bobbing, do face painting, make it to where they feel like they actually got to go to a fall festival. Make the place cards. Now I think it would be a great idea to have the kids make the place cards. But everyone feels a little fancy. When you’ve got out grandma’s China, and they get to walk up to the table and see their name. There’s something special about seeing your name anywhere in life. So maybe let’s bring that into Thanksgiving. Right. All right, just a few more things. How about turning Thanksgiving night into family game night? I know that we all like to watch friends. We all like to watch Christmas movies. I personally like to watch football, but maybe take some time to turn it into a family game night. So that that’s the new tradition. Maybe the new tradition is you get a new family game every year on Thanksgiving, and you spend that night playing it. I think that would be a blast. And then what about the last two? These last two are two age old Thanksgiving traditions, if you will. One is the wishbone splitting. Try to get creative with it this year. Everyone loves the wishbone split, but maybe draw straws to see who gets to do the wishbone split. Maybe it is the person that finds it. Maybe it’s the oldest and the youngest. Maybe it’s the person that came from the farthest away and someone who lives in the house but get creative at the two people that get to do the wishbone split. Take a picture documented every year because it’s really an awful lot of fun. If you research the meaning of the wishbone split and you research the origins and then keep up with it. their wishes actually came through here in the year came true during the year. And then last but not least, this is something that I always did growing up and I’ll be honest, I always hated it. Sorry, bear with me. hated it because I wanted to do it earlier. And that is decorate for Christmas. So I lived in the house with my grandparents. We spent every Thanksgiving, of course with our whole family at my grandparents and my grandmother’s rule was, you don’t decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving. you decorate for Christmas on Thanksgiving, after everyone has had their fill of food. So it was amazing. I wanted to do it earlier. Yes. And yes, in my house we decorate on November 1. As a matter of fact, I have been known to decorate on October 31. And then dress up as a dead Mrs. Claus that’s been stabbed by candy cane. As an excuse to be able to decorate for Christmas before Halloween. I think it’s brilliant. I know that there’s somebody out there that just called me a genius. But I decorate for Christmas earlier. I love it. It’s just my thing. But if you are someone that wants to decorate, after Thanksgiving, maybe make that the new tradition. You get all the boxes down after all the dishes are clean. You put on a Christmas movie we always decorate while watching the Grinch. Then we put on Miracle on 34th Street, then we put on elf every single year, we have our flow of Christmas movies. But maybe that’s it. Maybe every Thanksgiving night. You’ve set yourself up for the next day of celebrating your family. And that’s usually Christmas Eve and Christmas. So let me know reach out to the middle Housing Network. Go to our page. Let us know what your Thanksgiving traditions are. Let us know what your Christmas traditions are because I’m going to do another one of these. In another month. When we get close to Christmas. I would love to know your most creative in your wildest Christmas tradition. So thank you so much for joining us today. If you have not subscribed, please do so that you can join us for our Christmas episode. But also so that you can hear from realtors who are getting it done all around the country so that you can hear from homebuyers all around the country that have had excellent success finding their dream home so that you can hear from lenders so that you can hear the best tips for people that are buying and selling all around the country. We hope that we can meet that need for you. whenever it’s time to move, reach out to us, you’ll be matched with a team of pre selected realtors that are going to take care of you and your family and make it easy peasy. So thank you so much for joining us. We look forward to talking with you next week. Thank you for listening to the no housing nation podcast. To connect with no Housing Network, visit us online at m i l housing network.com