U.S. based here. My favorite tradition is only of about 10 years standing, and that is that my husband and I drive our Aussie to the Oregon coast for the holiday. He runs on the endless beaches, my husband and I have a wonderful dinner cooked by someone else at a restaurant, we all take drives and more beach walks the next day, and we unfailingly go to the Tillamook factory, where my husband and I get ice cream cones inside and the dog gets a bowl of vanilla ice cream outside. Usually we drive home the day after that.

This year, as always, I'll be thinking of Danf, who loved the Oregon coast. I wish I'd made plans on one of our trips to meet him.

It's a close call between some of the popular T-day dinner sidedishes - in my youth it was the only time you'd have sweet potatoes, and the corporate cross-promotion that became 'Green Bean Casserole' (after I substituted Cream of Broccoli for Cream of Mushroom) became my favorite not-so-healthy veggie dish - and the spectacle of the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade - yes, the Snoopy balloon still makes me smile.

There's an L.A. version of a Thanksgiving Parade, "The Santa Claus Lane Parade" (which is what they rename Hollywood Blvd. for the evening before T-day that they do the parade). Instead of giant balloons, the big draw is Movie & TV Stars of various levels riding in the back of antique convertible cars (only the egos are giant inflated). My high school band got to march in that parade one time in the early '70s. And our young, cool faculty bandmaster had some marching band arrangements of rock songs made so we passed the TV cameras playing "In A Gadda Da Vida". Groovy.

I don't really have any Thanksgiving traditions. As a child I hated it because it was centered around food, and I was a fussy eater and didn't care for any of the traditional stuff, and people were always bugging me to eat. I used to like the Macy's Parade, but now they don't really show it on TV as a parade anymore, it's just a bunch of quick glimpses of floats or balloons interspersed with long long numbers from shows or pop singers or Renee Fleming. I don't have any family nearby, and travel at Thanksgiving gets more and more impossible, so I seem to do something different every year. Last year I went to a coworker's house; her festivities included a 90-year-old British lady who insisted we toast the Queen.

We don't really have any Thanksgiving traditions except for the turkey but I think I'll start toasting the Queen.

and the memory of Freddie Mercury.

I've celebrated a few Thanksgivings in the USA. It's sort of the equivalent of our 4-day Easter holiday. Family gatherings, traditional food (usually lamb at Easter), football on TV.

But November in the UK can seem quite flat and a little depressing. Our last public holiday was at the end of August. Our next is Christmas Day. Four months without a holiday takes its toll on people. Once the clocks change in October I seem to spend all my working days in the dark and it can be a bit oppressive. It's dark when I leave for work, I don't get to leave the building during the day and it's dark when I head home.

But what I love about this time of year is the forest where I live. The colours of the trees are so beautiful and the fallen leaves blanket the forest floor. Yet it still looks verdant. Beautiful. It's too wet to go for a walk today, but I try to get out into the forest when I can.

A combo of the parade and the Purina dog show while I write out my holiday cards. I agree on the parade -- I could do with a lot less Broadway shows & singers on floats.

Used to be (20+ years ago?) we'd go to my brother's and people would bring mini-scripts and we'd shoot movies.

Nothing very interesting for us. We just go to one of my sister's houses and eat way too much and drink too much and argue about politics. Fortunately the arguing is Bernie vs. Hillary and about who's the nuttiest Republican; My family is pretty much a bunch of old hippies.

For years I hosted a giant feast sometime between Canadian and American Thanksgivings. I fell out of the habit when I moved to California, but decided to reinstate it this year. Last night was the date. A dozen people showed up: most of my work group, plus a few extras.

We had two geese (the other one was roasted in a friend's oven); some red cabbage with apples/cherries/chestnuts; stuffing with cornbread, wild rice, leeks, mushrooms, and hazelnuts; all kinds of roasted root vegetables. The meal and the company were wonderful but the aftermath is daunting. Last night I managed to put enough things away to forestall food-safety or dog-safety issues, but I had to drive to Santa Cruz and back for the day, and now I'm staring at the rest of the wreckage, wishing someone could come over -- not necessarily to help, just to keep me company and make encouraging noises while I do it.

I shouldn't be posting here. I should be cleaning up instead.

Here in the NL we have Sinterklaas coming up on Dec 5th. You don't have to be an ethymologist to see how Santa Claus is a bastardisation of Sinterklaas.
It's a really nice festivity: the gifts are rather small and it's mostly about the mystery of who gave you your gift and about the gentle ribbing in the accompanying doggerel poem.

Janet, maybe some year we can do something. This year, there is great crankiness, so I am planning to keep my head down.

I love the parade, I like to cook, and it's one of my favorite meals. Family drama is a tradition that I try not to keep going. sigh.