The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

Thanksgiving according to all accounts is the largest family holiday during the year, at least with the amount of travelling done--48.5 million people drove their cars this Thanksgiving, 4.27 million traveled by air, and 1.48 million went to family celebrations on a bus or train. We all have Thanksgiving traditions we repeat and repeat because they give us comfort.

Although many of us eat turkey at Thanksgiving ham is a favorite too. One of the foods that has become a family tradition at the holidays at our house is a cauliflower and broccoli salad.

The recipe was given to me by Rosie Darlington. Traditional pie is Pumpkin and Pecan, but this year I bought an apple pie, not homemade, because grandchildren wanted apple not because we needed another pie. Everyone has a special holiday food and traditionally we all made sure it was on the table with everyone else’s favorites.

When I was growing up a teacher asked my brother to draw a picture of our families Thanksgiving and he did. He drew a picture of a bunch of people playing poker. There was my Uncle Art with the big nose, my dad who was obviously losing, because he always lost, and my Uncle Lennie with piles and piles money, because he always won. It’s what we did after every Thanksgiving feast. Finding something to do as a family after you eat, or before you eat is also a part of the tradition.

Many Montana men go hunting after their sit-down family dinner, since it is the last weekend of hunting. This Thanksgiving was not a good weekend to go hunting because it was extremely muddy. Many families play board games, other’s watch football.

Going for hikes, or hunting for the family Christmas tree are also favorites.

This Thanksgiving weekend I made sugar cookies, with two of my grandchildren. They put the ingredients together, mixed it, cooled the dough, rolled it out, cut out the cookies, baked them, frosted and decorated them.

My favorite moment was when my grandson said, while digging out the cookie dough, with a knife, from the wire whip, because I had used the wrong attachment and it had all balled up inside, said “I love doing this. It reminds me of digging out the mud when we’re seeding.”