We wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with your family and friends. Please enjoy some of the favorite memories from our staff.

Thanksgiving Memory from Amber /Admin Asst. @21 Acres
My favorite Thanksgiving memory would be sitting around the piano with my parents, grandparents and uncle’s family to sing carols with each person picking a different choral part to sing.

Thanksgiving Memory from Liesl / Market Manager @21Acres
My Dad still uses the turkey stuffing recipe his Mom developed over 75 years ago.  Not only that, he uses the same roasting pan!  (Not 75 years old, but at least 25 as it is the only one I remember).  It is an annual tradition for my sisters and I to wake up early and help Dad slice and saute vegetables, boil stock, mix up the stuffing and doctor it just right with seasonings.  Once the turkey goes in the oven around 8:30 in the morning, we all sit down to watch the parade…and take a collective nap in the living room.  Following his basting schedule, the bird, and the stuffing, never fail to impress.  Want to know the secret ingredient?  You have to marry into my family to find out! Happy Thanksgiving and may your day be just as blessed as mine, even if you do not have a 5 am wake up call.

Thanksgiving Memory from Karen /Event Staff @21Acres
Riding in the “way back” of the station wagon with my older brother.  We had a 10 hour drive to our grandmother’s. This was before iPods, video screens,etc., so to pass the time we sang the same songs over and over, probably driving our parents craZy.

Thanksgiving Memory from Jane / Sustainable Events Coordinator @21Acres
Growing up ripe olives constituted haute cuisine and Thanksgiving was the only time they were served!  My method–an olive on each finger tip, eat the thumb first, pinky last.

Thanksgiving Memory from Scott / Permaculturist @21Acres
“As a youth, I thought Thanksgiving to be an ordinary, traditional, and modern American holiday excuse off from school and work.  I later found it to be a gathering of closely related family members that sit down around a large table together, give hackneyed blessings and expressions of gratitude for bountiful harvests and harmonious relationships.  Turkey, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, fruit gelatin, baked yams, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and whipped cream adorned a candle lit table each year while we listened to soothing music and ate a warm home-cooked dinner together.  This went on as far back as I can remember until in 2009, I moved to Costa Rica where Thanksgiving is widely unknown.  My habit of repetition would have to be broken.  Imposing my foreign traditions upon the local Costa Ricans around me was out of consideration, and instead, I just looked within and gave thanks in my own internal celebration of Thanksgiving.  I gave thanks to my family back home and the new people around me.  I gave thanks to the gifts we have been given and the gifts we give to others.  I thanked the sun and the air that gave me life until something very significant happened to me: a nagging desire for the loved ones I grew up with and hunger pangs for a Thanksgiving meal disappeared.  Water fasting on Thanksgiving helped me find tranquility and clarity of mind without digestive distractions, and understood more of what Costa Rican’s call “Pura Vida.”  I did not eat a single bite of food nor consume a single calorie for a 24 hour period of time during Thanksgiving in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012.  When I returned back to the US and the family I grew up with, I returned to their traditions, but with a genuinely sincere appreciation for so many gifts I never knew had been taken for granted.”

Thanksgiving Memory from Deb / Admin & HR @ 21 Acres
I was born in the south where pecan pie rules the day.  We moved to Washington when I was three, but the pie, with my mom being the Pecan Pie Queen, came with us.  When I moved to New Jersey after college, my mom would make small pies, pack them up in a coffee can and mail them to me, so the tradition was unbroken.  My mom is gone, but my sister and I have carried on with Pecan Pie making for the family.

Thanksgiving Memory from Deb / Admin and HR@21 Acres
I grew up with the traditional sweet potato casserole topped with marshmallows for Thanksgiving dinner.  As an adult, I am not a fan, but my heart is filled with love for tradition and what gets carried on to the next generation.   My sister still always makes that horribly sweet marshmallow treat and my daughter, now grown and living in Australia, has insinuated this American phenomenon on the unsuspecting Aussies.    However, they don’t seem to have plain marshmallows Down Under and I have had to send them to her, so the last time she was home, we had a girl’s night in the kitchen learned how to make marshmallows, so  she can continue to share her memories and traditions with her new friends and family.

Thanksgiving Memory from Brenda / PR and Communications @21Acres
When anyone mentions Thanksgiving at our house we all remember the biggest and best family gathering we had in years was when Grandma Dot came to visit. The Jacobson clan from Washington and Oregon all landed at our house for dinner. (fyi G Dot is now 94!) Not in this picture was the dessert table. 🙂 Everyone brought something (even the teenagers) and it took more than one table to hold the bounty of sweet tradition.

Thanksgiving Memory from Deb / Admin and HR @21Acres
The year that will go down in the memory of our large and very extended family, is when my mom, queen of pie, had been ahead of the game and made her Thanksgiving Peach Pie quite early and popped it in the freezer.  With a glad heart since her day was made easier, she laid the pie out on the dessert table.  Cousin Tobin who always looked forward to that pie and was completely delighted to have a Peach Pie option, was first to the dessert table, scooped up a piece and downed a large bite.  Imagine his disappointment and the Queen of Pie’s chagrin to discover that her memory of her early preparation did not actually include baking the pie!