In all my 20 years of celebrating Thanksgiving, I think only three of them have been celebrated in a "traditional" way: having cousins and cousins together, with turkey and football, and embarrassing stories about my childhood being passed around, and that one uncle that's still stuck in 1950.

In some ways, I'm thankful that I didn't grow up with the traditional "Thanksgiving" because I still look forward to it every year, maybe not as much as other people, but I never really had any bad memories to associate with it. Usually what happens is my family goes to a restaurant or this nice resort in Orlando called Shingle Creek and they have a really nice Thanksgiving lunch set up. I think one year we even went to Golden Corral, because what's more American than Golden Corral? All of this is to say that Thanksgiving never really meant the same to my family as it did to some of the other families I grew up around. If anything Thanksgiving lunch/dinner is just a pre-game for the main attraction: Black Friday shopping.

I think as I've gotten older (my sister and I are both in college now) and my parents are empty-nesters it means more to me now. Being that my mom's culture, Filipino, is basically the reigning culture in my family, Thanksgiving didn't really hold the same meaning to her or to us either. She didn't grow up with family always coming together for Thanksgiving, being that, you know, it didn't exist in the Philippines. My dad never really talks about his childhood or any Thanksgiving memories either, so basically my parents started their own traditions, as I think a lot of families end up doing.

I would say that we celebrate Thanksgiving differently than a lot of my Filipino friends even, because although we celebrate Christmas with them (because there is no Christmas party like a Filipino Christmas party), usually our Thanksgivings are limited to just the four of us -my mom, dad, sister, and I- and maybe another family, but that's usually as big as it gets. Just a few families celebrating together because most of our family is either too spread out in the US or is abroad and doesn't celebrate at all.

I think it's nice to be able to create our own traditions and to not have the pressure of trying to check all the items on the stereotypical checklist of Thanksgiving. This year, though, my parents chose to celebrate at home. Just the four of us and a friend of my sister's whose parents are also empty-nesters and decided they would go on a cruise.

So, the five of us will probably sit and enjoy Publix brand pumpkin pie, stuffing, pre-made mashed potatoes, and turkey, and my dad will probably make green bean casserole from the recipe off the side of the French's container of fried onions. Sometimes, tradition means making things from scratch, but sometimes it's going somewhere new every year for Thanksgiving and sometimes that even means going on a cruise.

Happy holidays (and good luck Black Friday shopping)!