Happy Faux Thanksgiving!

What is Faux Thanksgiving you may be asking yourself? For our combined family, it is a made-up holiday dating back to 2009. In 2009, James and I started dating earlier that year. We decided to ask our families how important it was to celebrate Thanksgiving on the actual day, thankfully both our families responded that it wasn’t that important. So, we moved Thanksgiving up a week or two (depending on the year), we also always seem to have a slightly different guest list than the year before. There are always some familiar faces from each of our families and as our families have grown so has Faux Thanksgiving! We do cook a turkey and all the fixings- stuffing, cranberry sauce from a can, cranberry sauce not from a can, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmallows (my favorite, I’m basically the only one who eats these now), and green beans. Liz has added her Lizalicious (as Jackie says) dinner rolls the last few years. Mama ME always makes her amazing apple crisp for dessert. Aunt Carla always brings her turkey plates (pictured above)! We also try to eat around 2pm, which allows for a second dinner around 6pm!

We get to have a lot of laughs together! We also get to celebrate this combined family made by love and not necessarily blood.

James and I used to spend actual Thanksgiving traveling abroad because we got the perk of holiday time from work without having to take too many vacation days. Now for actual Thanksgiving, we tend to have a relaxing long weekend down in Maryland. Last year we had tacos for Thanksgiving dinner. I’m not sure what we will cook this year. It also gives our other family members time to spend with their other loved ones and takes the pressure from trying to get to multiple dinners in one day or weekend.

Do you have any fun family traditions coming up?