What Does Thanksgiving Mean to You?

Thanksgiving is a time for families and friends to get together. The holiday encourages people to help their fellow man. It's also great fun for football fans. It means different things to different people. People even throw their own personal touches to the holiday.

Just what does Thanksgiving mean to you?

This is what I'm talking with the Viewpoints panel members about today. How do they celebrate? Do they celebrate at all? Are they traditional in their thinking about Thanksgiving, or do they have a whole new take on the day? Let's find out.

What does Thanksgiving mean to you?

Thomas: Family and a large turkey making me drool for hours till it's done.

Lynn: My answer (which might be considered cliché) is that every day is Thanksgiving, every day is Christmas, and every day demands my gratitude and celebration. Thanksgiving, the formal holiday, allows me to gather with friends or family and celebrate the abundance in my life and the lessons I've been afforded.

Michy: When I was a child, it meant family - and time off from school. My mother has seven siblings in her immediate family, so I had aunts and uncles and cousins all around for the holidays. We'd usually travel to San Angelo and spend the entire weekend there.

As we all grew up, and older, everyone sort of scattered. The main part of the family still meets in San Angelo every year, but it's been years since I've been back. It may not seem it to those who know me online, but I'm really a rather anti-social person. I'm content to spend Thanksgiving Day with my little family that I spend every day of the year with.

When you live in gratitude, every day is Thanksgiving.

Amy: Thanksgiving means to celebrate the bounty of the harvest, although we don't actually have a harvest any more. The harvest these days is that we are still alive, working, and able to come together.

Lindsay: Thanksgiving to me, is all about family. Some of my best memories are Thanksgiving evenings spent stuffing myself silly and sharing laughs with my family.

How do you celebrate the holiday?

Thomas: Miserable from eating too much...

Lynn: Sometimes, I travel to be with family. Sometimes family will come here and we will cook a meal together. Sometimes I cook a meal for friends who, like me, are not part of "traditional" family units. Sometimes I go to friends' houses, taking a potluck dish to share. I don't really have a "tradition" surrounding Thanksgiving.

I have one friend who ALWAYS donates his time and efforts toward feeding others at the SuperFeast, here in the Houston area. I admire him for that and many other volunteer activities in which he participates.

Michy: Now that I home school my son and work from home, in some ways, it's really just any another day, but with a much better dinner! Fortunately, last year and this year, I've added some wonderful people to my life, my chosen family, and so Thanksgiving might just begin to mean more to me again. If nothing else, we do make a traditional Thanksgiving dinner and share it with the immediately family.

Amy: It means a family get together to celebrate the end of the year. It is a big sit down meal, usually in my brother's restaurant (63 now my parents, siblings and the rest). It is a chance to sit back, relax, and talk. Memories are shared a family photo is taken.

Lindsay: We always spend the holiday with family. Now that I'm married, we switch off years between my parents and my husband's parents. In fact, sometimes we mush together our families and my parents celebrate at my husband's parent's house with us!

Do you have a favorite recipe you'd like to share?

Thomas: Recipes no, foods yes. Turkey, sweet potatoes, pepperoni dressing, black olives, mashed potatoes and gravy with pumpkin pie!

Lynn: Until I came to Houston, I had never had "fried turkey". The very words made me laugh the first time I heard them. I mean, how stereotypical, right? It has been said that everything is fried in the South... even Twinkies... but the thought of frying a whole turkey made me laugh. That was before I tried it. I'm not laughing anymore! That was good turkey!

There are a few key things associated with frying turkeys:

First, NEVER attempt to fry a turkey indoors at home... not even under a porch roof. In fact, you don't even want over-hanging limbs from a tree while you work outside.

Second, know how much volume your turkey will displace BEFORE you are working with hot oil. The best way to do that is to use water as a model since you have to bathe the turkey first anyway. Remove the packages of hearts and gizzards from a thawed turkey, place the turkey on the frying stand (usually goes through the turkey to hold it upright during frying and makes it easier to put the turkey into the hot oil and drain oil from the turkey while removing it from hot oil). Place the stand and turkey into the pot. Add water until the turkey is covered and maybe an inch more, but leaving at least three inches from the top of the pot. Remove the turkey and stand from the water and mark or make note of the new water level. This will be the level to which you fill with oil for cooking purposes. Wash and dry the pot, stand, and bird.

Third, flavor the turkey by using subcutaneous flavor injections. There are lots of commercially made injection flavors to choose from or make your own! It keeps the bird very moist while cooking!

Fourth, rub the turkey inside and out with oil and salt (those of you on low sodium diets will probably want to skip the salt, but the oil will make the skin crispy).

Refrigerate the injected/slathered bird covered overnight - think of it as a marinade process.

Fried Turkeys cook MUCH faster than roasted ones. The rule of thumb is 3 minutes per pound. Heat the oil to 325F, SLOWLY lower the turkey into the oil (fast dunking will result in a column of hot oil shooting out of the pot... this is BAD). When cooking is completed, use mitts or tools to slowly remove the turkey and cooking stand, allowing them to drain. After the allotted cooking time, use a meat thermometer on the drained turkey to be sure. Breast meat should read 170-180F. Enjoy!

Michy: I make a killer honey and clove ham. The specifics of the recipe are a secret, even to me, and they change every year! I also make a fantastic reduced cranberry and orange sauce. I absolutely love to cook.

Amy: Well I love a good Thanksgiving casserole, but it is made from the leftovers. You take the Thanksgiving leftovers, layer them in a glass dish, and bake it. I wrote an article on ac about it last year, just to share it with the readers.

Lindsay: I don't know the recipe, but my aunt makes an amazing sweet potato casserole... YUM.

If you have children, do they know how Thanksgiving started?

Thomas: Two and yes they do.

Lynn: No human children for me and my furry babies just care whether they get some leftovers!

Michy: Well, my son is 14 and my daughter is 21, so I should hope they do. I think what it means to them now would be more up to them. I hope they will always want to come home and share a good meal with their old mom though.

Amy: I am a history buff, especially in early America so yes my kids know how it all began.

Lindsay: Not yet, they're 3 and 1.

What are you most thankful for this year?

Thomas: Everything! Literally.

Lynn: I am most thankful for friendships and relationships in my life, for people who have made a huge difference in my life, especially my friends Michy and Jim who each, in their own ways, helped me hold onto what little sanity I have left. I am thankful that I learned or re-learned lessons, even if they have been painful. I am thankful for the abundance I have in my life. I know I am blessed.

Michy: Life. I'm thankful I'm still here. There were two times specifically this past year when I wasn't so sure that would be the case. I'm very grateful for my life. After that, for love and my immediate and chosen family.

Amy: I am thankful that my father is still with us, and we can share this special day with my family. I have only missed two of these special days in my forty-two years, and I do not plan to miss any more.

Lindsay: All of the clichés: health, happiness, and family. But, I'm also thankful for silly things that keep me sane like Starbucks, my laptop, and pizza.

Seems Thanksgiving is a truly special time for all the Viewpoints members. Spending time with family and good food are common denominators.

For those of us that have lost loved ones, Thanksgiving can be bittersweet. It's important that we still enjoy all the blessing we do have, and give thanks for the treasured memories of those gone.

I wish all of you a happy and joyous Thanksgiving.