SOOO FULL I Can Barely Move

Before I start, I want to mention that this is my last post of the semester. I really enjoyed sharing my traditions as well as learning some of my friends traditions throughout the semester and I hope you enjoyed reading them. I will be writing a blog next semester too but probably not this one as I have discussed most of the major holidays. However, I hope you follow along for that blog too.

So, now on to my last post which is about one of my favorite holidays and the one you all of you in college can't wait for so you can leave, Thanksgiving. (If you call it Turkey Day I will probably threaten you, just ask my friends.)

This week, I decided to complete the cycle of my blog and talk just about my Thanksgiving traditions this week since there is a lot to them. However, PLEASE share your traditions in the comments!

Leading up to Thanksgiving, my family puts bags on our neighbors' mailboxes for our neighborhood food drive. Then we help the day of by collecting bags at the club house to give the people running the event a break and help load the truck. I love seeing our neighbors come together to help people they don't know and probably never will know.

For Thanksgiving itself my dad and I are the ones that cook and my mom and brother clean the house and set the table.

My dad and I plan out our menu in depth after looking at different recipes online. Then we look around our house to see what we have and whatever we are missing we then go shopping for on Monday or Tuesday. We tend to start cooking Wednesday afternoon and evening because we always have lots of dishes of large quantities to make.

Thursday, we wake up pretty early and watch the NYC Macy's Day parade while we cook. We also switch to the Philadelphia parade to watch my high school band march in the parade. This year my brother will be playing saxophone in the marching band to help welcome Santa in. Once the parade is over we watch the annual dog show, all the while cooking in the kitchen.

Photo By: Ricky Brigante

My favorite dish to make is our double baked sweet potatoes. To make the sweet potatoes, we make the potatoes and then let them cool slightly. The then potatoes are cut in half and my dad and I scoop out the inside leaving a little "flesh" of the potato on the skin so it is like a boat. The inside of the potatoes all goes into one big bowl. Then, we add heavy cream, nutmeg, and a few other ingredients to the bowl and mash it all up. Then, we refill the potato skin boats with the sweet potato filling . Once all the skins are filled and on a pan we cover them in marshmallows and bake them for a second time. These sweet potatoes are everyone's favorite. My one cousin has threatened to not show up unless we have the potatoes.

Photo By: Mike Mozart

Speaking of who comes on Thanksgiving, our guests normally include my immediate family and my cousins and their son. This year my other cousin and his daughters will be joining us. No matter how many or how few people we have for Thanksgiving my dad and I cook as though we have an army coming.

One year we had lots of leftovers so the next day we invited some family friends over for dessert. My dad and I had put lots of time into dessert that year and had made a 7 layer death by chocolate cake. Each level was chocolate and it was very rich. In fact, it was so rich that after eating some our friend needed to get some fresh air to clear his head, I certainly didn't blame him. However, this was my favorite dessert we made because of how much work went into it; it really became something to be proud of.

Very Similar Photo and Recipe to this cake by: The Slow Roasted Italian

At some point during the day in my house, we normally watch the Eagles game whether it be before dinner, between dinner and dessert or after dessert. Since my cousins are huge Eagles fans this is always fun. My brother, cousin and I also have a tradition of going in the basement after dinner and before dessert and creating a haunted house. While super cheesy, and often not to great, we make our mothers go through them and if we are lucky the dads. My mom said she expects us to do it must years until we have kids of our own to do it to us.

Overall, Thanksgiving is a time to eat great food- cranberry sauce is my favorite- and spend time with some family you don't get to see all the time. One last thing we do every year is go around the table and say what we are thankful for that year. I think this is a wonderful tradition to take a break from our lives and be thankful for those around us and remember who is there for us.

The year Hanukkah and Thanksgiving overlapped

So, what do you do on Thanksgiving and what is your favorite Thanksgiving food?

Boom, Crackle, Pop!

July 4th, the day we celebrate the birth of our nation, sounds pretty important, right?

Well for such an important sounding holiday I certainly don't do anything extravagant or overly important. I decided to ask around to see if this was just my family or others too. Ultimately I have come to the conclusion that as a country we do much to celebrate the 4th of July.

With that being said their are some traditions my friends, as well as myself, follow. Some people I talked to go to picnics and eat lots of different kinds of food, specifically watermelon, while others hang out with family and play baseball. However most people I asked said they watch fireworks.

Photo By: Ginny

Since that's a rather broad tradition, I'll focus on the two different firework traditions my family has.

On the fourth, my family sits on the hill behind my house that faces the main road since we can see fireworks in the surrounding neighborhoods and from the local amusement park, Sesame Place, from there. Last year I went to the mall parking lot with some friends earlier in the night to watch the sesame fireworks a bit closer, before the hill. Normally, while sitting on the hill our friends/neighbors come and join us to watch the fireworks. Sometimes we also light sparklers with our friends while waiting for fireworks.

One year, there were extravagant fireworks in the neighborhood across the street from mine so we set off in the car to find them. However, after at least an hour searching for the origin of the fireworks we could not find what house was setting them off.

While this was fun, my favorite memory of this night is the year we were sitting on the hill and very drunk man in his thirties walked by us. He couldn't even walk in a straight line and by the time he got to us we could tell he reeked of alcohol. He was a very happy drunk and started freaking out over the fact that things were exploding in the sky, fireworks. He then asked us where the neighborhood next to us was. We told him and then he continued to ask us repeatedly and kept laughing. He eventually started to walk in the direction of his apparent destination. In that direction there is a large pond down the hill next to the sidewalk. Once he got to the pond he appeared to walk into it however he quickly reappeared and laid down in the grass. Eventually he got back up and walked towards the pond and then turned around and headed back towards the neighborhood he had asked us for. By the end we were all laughing so hard we were crying.

Our other tradition happens a few days after the 4th of July. We go to our neighboring town for their "First Fourth" event. This event is held at a local middle school and includes lots of food for purchase as well as various other vendors. We set up chairs as close as we can to the fence and then walk around looking for friends and play Frisbee, catch, or play with glow sticks and toy helicopters as music plays. Once it gets dark, the music stops and the fireworks sponsored by a local Italian restaurant begin. Eventually, the show ends with a firework in the shape of an American flag and that marks the end of my Fourth of July traditions until the next year!

Photo By: Kara Seymour

Photo By: Jeff Werner

So, where do you watch fireworks or what else do you do to celebrate the Fourth of July? Please share in the comments below!