It's Getting Close to Turkey Time

I am thinking about Thanksgiving which is only a few weeks away.
I was flipping through the November Southern Living magazine.  Looking at the recipes in the magazine, I began to wonder what ever happened to down home Thanksgiving food?  Like yams with marshmellows on top or my least favorite Thanksgiving food:  green beans with those canned French Fries?  One friend wasn't satisfied unless she could see the ridges which formed on the jelly cranberry sauce in the can!!
Everything now is a gourmet twist on holiday food.  If you don't put something spicy in your beans or potatoes or you don't dolly up your cransberries and your stuffing, then you are really out of step with the rest of the world.
I always thought that holiday meals gave us the opportunity to relive memories of holidays past.  We could sit around the table and tell the story of how my Dad thought it was okay to give our 10 month old daughter some pumpkin pie, with all those spices.  The result of that taste of pumpkin pie created some interesting diaper moments.
We always looked forward to that special Turkey.  Years ago we didn't eat turkey during most of the year.  It was a dish we saved for Thanksgiving and my Mom's turkeys were always the best.  Our Dad loved the neck and the giblets...no one dared touch any of those pieces without his permission.
Pumpkin pie didn't appear on an everyday menu either.  What about mince meat pie.....ugh! we thought, who would eat that mess? but it was always on the dessert table.  When I finally got up the nerve to try it, I had to admit that mince meat wasn't so bad afterall.
Around the store we always chuckle about Thanksgiving questions from our customers.  It's just like St. Patrick's day....not a candy holiday.  Chocolate makers have attenpted to get into that market, but for Thanksgiving the most we can do is sell foil covered chocolate turkeys or the Big Mr. Tom Turkey which weighs 3 pounds!
Nonetheless pumpkin has become an addition to Fall chocolates...pumpkin malt balls, pumpkin caramels, pumpkin bark and pumpkin truffle.  When Thanksgiving is past, we will still have customers ask for one of these pumpkin candies.
People complain that retailers skip over Halloween and Thanksgiving in a rush to put out the Christmas offerings!!  There is some truth to that comment..our society has definitely over-commercialized winter holidays.  Looking at the situation from the retailers point of view, though, it is the 4th quarter of the year which makes the entire year financially successful.
So give us retailers a little slack...shopping locally will insure that our doors will be open year around.