Must-have dishes and family make Thanksgiving traditions

Published 6:36 pm Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Backyard football games, naps after the big meal, putting up Christmas trees and reviewing advertising inserts in the newspaper for Black Friday sales — all common Thanksgiving Day traditions.

For many area residents, there are other Thanksgiving Day customs, at least for them and their families.

“We celebrate my birthday!! It falls on Thanksgiving every so often,” wrote Anita Bullock Branch, deputy director of the Beaufort County Board of Elections, in a Facebook post.

William Oughton, via a Facebook post, is sharing this: “Wednesday evening, our youngest son, his wife (they are both lawyers) our grand-daughter, 2 large dogs and a giant cooler will pull in from Jacksonville, Fla. They didn’t just bring the fixin’s they will cook the turkey and all the trimmings. Third year in a row!”

Some traditions are food related — got to have these items or it just isn’t Thanksgiving.

“We make my Grandma’s homemade cinnamon rolls and mimosas with fresh fruit. It is our treat that I look forward to every year!” wrote Danielle Midkiff Hunnings, co-owner of the No Wake Zone Grill, in a Facebook post.

MJ Carbo, former director of the Beaufort-Hyde-Martin Regional Library, shared the following in a Facebook post: “It’s a Maryland tradition to serve sauerkraut with the Thanksgiving meal.”

Theresa “T” Holman, a former Washington resident who now lives in Havelock, posted just three words about her got-to-have item for Thanksgiving: “Grandma’s cake cornbread.”

Some area residents could do without some Thanksgiving “traditions.”

One of them is Jack Willard, who wrote this in a Facebook post: “5th year in a row working on Thanksgiving. I am in retail and must be to work at 3:30pm.”

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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