A Canadian Thanksgiving

When Todd left his mission in Little Rock, AR he swore he would never...EVER...live in Arkansas again. Within a year, the poor guy had his permanent residency and has resided in the Natural State, ever since (thanks to me). I'm sure he'd never admit it, but I think he considers himself an Arkansan now, (of course, never an American...he must be true to his Canadian roots). Sometimes being so far from home can be hard for him. So, this year we decided to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving.

The kids were home from school that day (Columbus day for we Americans) so it was nice to have them around as we cooked turkey, and bread dressing (not cornbread, mind you), and strawberry rhubarb pie. Honestly, dinner wasn't terribly fancy. I had to be at a class by 6:00, so I basically prepared Todd's favorite Thanksgiving fare...(and we had just a turkey breast instead of the whole thing) therefore dinner was certainly lacking in vegetables. (If you're bored...skip to the next post. The following is more for my kids than anything.)

Bread dressing...it was SO delicious...sorry mom, way better than the cornbread!

During dinner we talked about the diffences between Todd's Thanksgiving dinners as a Canadian and my dinners as a Southern American. Todd's dinners usually included: Turkey, bread dressing, cranberry sauce, turnip greens, corn, mashed potatoes, rice pudding, pumpkin pie, strawberry rhubarb pie, tomato juice, and Canada dry. My dinners were :Turkey, cornbread dressing, no cranberry sauce...but usually a cranberry concoction of my mom's..broccoli rice casserole, green bean casserole, SWEET potatoes with LOADS of marshmallows...YUM..., pumpkin, pecan, chocolate, and peanut butter pies. Beverages were usually soda...coke, dr.pepper, etc.

It was fun sharing the differences with the kids and discussing why daddy is always ready for a turkey dinner by Christmas and mom is used to ham for Christmas dinner. (Don't forget the time we actually had a less traditional Christmas dinner of ham and potato salad, mom...lol...weren't there baked beans involved too....don't disown me for posting that!)