We start Thanksgiving morning with Praise and Pancakes at our church, it is one of my favorite things about Thanksgiving.  Our church has this special service at 7 AM, we sing a few songs of worship to the Lord and then one by one whoever would like goes up front and says what they are thankful for.  Most people are in their pajamas, its nothing fancy but special.  After we give praise to God for all we have to be thankful for we enjoy pancakes together and sweet fellowship.  My father in law makes the best pancakes he has been the pancake cook at this event for many years.

We come home and watch the Macy’s Day Parade while we chop and prep stuff for our Thanksgiving Feast.  I say we but it is usually me with a  little help from my hubby.  I love every minute of it though and I do a lot of prep work the night before so I mostly have to drain/strain and put together things, put all the stuff out on platters and such.  

We usually eat our Thanksgiving meal early in the day around 1 PM.  This gives us ample time to enjoy the turkey and fixings all day long.  The guys usually watch football in the living room and my mom, sister and I usually play games or do some kind of craft with the kids in the other room.  The guys usually fall asleep watching football, and we girls go over the Black Friday ads in print and just talk and hang out.  It’s laid back and relaxing and I love every minute of it.  Most years we have great weather and watch the boys play in the backyard, I think Thanksgiving day would be perfect for a rain day, since everyone stays inside and hangs out, but rarely does that happen.
Our Thanksgiving Menu looks like this:
Appetizers:
Ranch Dip with Veggies, Spinach Dip, Shrimp with cocktail sauce, Bacon Wrapped Smokies, Chips and Salsa of course doesn’t everyone have chips and salsa on Thanksgiving, guacamole and fruit salad with yummy marshmallow dip.

Main Course and Sides:
Turkey of course (sometimes we have ham also), salad, (which there is usually no room on the plate for and everyone says they will come back for but never does), mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, classic green bean casserole, broccoli salad, macaroni and cheese (for the kids and my dad) and rolls.
I use Trisha Yearwood’s Sweet Potato Soufflé Recipe, it has become a family favorite, here is the link:
http://goo.gl/ezuZp3

And if you haven’t had cold broccoli salad here is the recipe.  It’s light and refreshing and great with leftovers the next few days, it’s quite addicting if I do say so myself.  This recipe calls for sunflower seeds, we usually use slivered almonds instead. 
http://goo.gl/rTy4if

Dessert:
Pumpkin pie, apple crumb pie, pecan pie, cherry pie and vanilla ice cream.  Never fails as well we usually have some kind of cheese cake, pumpkin flavored or plain.  

I try to do as much as possible the day before so I have time to relax on Thanksgiving too.  I chop everything that needs to be chopped the night before and make all my desserts the day before.  I pull out all the platters I am going to use and leave them out so I don’t have to search for them the morning of.  I usually menu plan for light and quick easy meals the week and days leading up to Thanksgiving, makes it easy on any budget since we usually splurge on the Thanksgiving meal and it has a lot more involved and preparing quick and easy meals the week before makes for less time in the kitchen.    

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