The weather is changing. We’ve already had one chilly night that brought frost by morning, the trees are starting to glow with their autumn colours, and the harvest is coming in. Canadian Thanksgiving is coming up this weekend, with the holiday falling on Monday, October 12.
As I plan this year’s dinner, I’ve been thinking about how much I enjoy bringing family together for a meal—and remembering some of the different ways we’ve celebrated over the years. The food is always a big part of it, but so are the laughter, the conversations and the fun of preparing it together.
Thanksgiving at our house has taken a few unusual turns over the years. One year, dinner went home in containers. At a later gathering, we sat down together, but the gravy was black.
Both were Thanksgiving dinners. Both came with a little Halloween. And both gave us something to remember.
Take-out from Nana’s house
In 2020, COVID changed the way we did almost everything, including Thanksgiving. We had enjoyed a family barbecue when restrictions eased that summer, but by Thanksgiving, gathering limits meant our whole family couldn’t get together in one house.
With a big family, I try to shop ahead and keep an eye on the cost. That year’s turkey was already in the freezer. I’d bought it on sale during the summer for 99 cents a pound.
Looking at turkey prices now, in 2026, I’m seeing fresh turkey at $2.99 a pound—about three times what I paid then. Of course, mine was frozen and on sale, while this one is fresh, so it isn’t quite the same comparison. Still, when you’re feeding a large family, that difference adds up.
The turkey was sorted. How to get everyone fed was another matter.
I considered having dinner in shifts. Would I serve a hot meal or a cold one? Would everyone come on the same day, or would I spread it over several days? And would that really solve the problem of passing an infection from one household to another?
The children were back in school and daycare. A sniffle could mean staying home, and someone taking more time off work to look after them. I didn’t want our Thanksgiving dinner adding to those worries. Besides, I was still working then. We liked to have at least one day to recuperate after hosting a family gathering before going back to work!
Dinner in shifts wasn’t going to be practical. My solution was take-out. Not from a restaurant—from Nana’s house.
A dinner in every box
Once I’d settled on take-out, I had to work out what to cook, what each household could prepare, and how to package everything.
At our usual gatherings, the kitchen and adjoining dining area fill up with people chatting, sampling food and lending a hand. While the turkey is being carved and the meal comes together, there’s always someone looking to see what they can taste. I’d learned to put out vegetables and dip first; if I brought out the relish trays too early, they could disappear before dinner!
Having a large family makes these gatherings so much fun. There are conversations going on in every direction, people catching up, children playing, and plenty of laughter. I enjoy the fun in the kitchen while we prepare the meal just as much as the lively conversation around the table once we sit down. Getting everyone together for a meal is one of my favourite things, and in 2020, I knew I would miss all of that.
For our take-out Thanksgiving, I decided each family could assemble the cold part of the meal at home. It would save us preparation time and cut down on the packaging. I shopped for the usual accompaniments, buying enough for each family’s hamper.
They could cut their own cheese and make up their own relish trays with the pickles and other things in their boxes. Instead of buns, I bought refrigerator crescent rolls that they could bake when they were ready to eat. There were crackers, chips and dip to enjoy with dinner or save for later.
Glen and I prepared the turkey and ham and divided them into take-out containers. The menu also included mashed potatoes and gravy, dressing, two hot vegetables and sweets. I’d considered wrapping the meat in aluminum foil, but decided containers would be less messy.
Then came the packing. I’d collected boxes and a large reusable bag to help get everything home. Each household had its own collection of food, and I added a small toy for each child. In the photographs, the orange Halloween toys are peeking out of the boxes above all those containers.
Thanksgiving take-out from Nana’s house: dinner, accompaniments and a little something for the children.
Finding a way to share the day
The food was only part of what I would miss. I also missed the kitchen chatter, everyone helping get dinner onto the table, and the lively discussions that come with a large family. And, of course, the little ones usually steal the show.
In my original At Nana’s House post, I was still working out ways to bring some of that fun into our separate homes. If time permitted, I wanted Glen and me to make a short video for our Family Chat, showing the hampers and how we’d prepared the food. I planned to include leftover ideas, such as adding leftover cranberries to muffins, and ask each family to send a video of the dinner they’d put together from their box.
I was also considering an online trivia game, with questions for the children as well as the adults. Those were ideas on my planning list, but they show what I was trying to do: find a way to share the day, even when we couldn’t share a table.
I ended that original post hoping we’d all be together the following Thanksgiving, talking about how we’d done things in 2020.
Thanksgiving meets Halloween
By Thanksgiving 2024, COVID gathering limits were behind us, and I had a different idea for our family dinner.
Glen has been decorating our home quite elaborately for Halloween for many years now. I like to come up with something fun when the family gathers, and I thought, why not connect the two celebrations? The yard was already decorated, so I decided to make Thanksgiving a costume party with a Halloween-themed meal. After dinner, we could head outside for a photo shoot among Glen’s decorations.
Most of our guests came in costume. Inside, we had Halloween decorations and tableware, and the food joined in the theme.
There was a skeleton surrounded by vegetables. A pumpkin with an eye patch appeared to be bringing up a stream of Watergate salad—a green pistachio pudding salad. The devilled eggs had red streaks through the whites, and a dessert was decorated with gummy worms and candy teeth.
Even the salad and sweets dressed up for Thanksgiving.
We still had the familiar Thanksgiving food, but some of it looked quite different. And that brings me to the gravy.
The black gravy
My nephew and his wife had spent most of the day helping me prepare the meal. She came ready to join in the Halloween fun, with her food dyes in tow—and our gravy ended up black!
It tasted like gravy. It just didn’t look like any gravy we normally poured over our Thanksgiving dinner.
You can describe black gravy, but the photograph really does the job. There it is, pouring out of a white gravy boat onto the turkey. Against the orange food on the plate, it certainly carried the Halloween theme through to the main course.
The gravy tasted normal. Its appearance was another matter.
Glen’s verdict was straightforward: “Never do that again.”
Ryan refused it altogether.
So, although I had brought Thanksgiving and Halloween together, not everyone was on board with the gravy. You can only take a theme so far before someone draws the line.
After dinner, we went outside for photographs among Glen’s Halloween decorations. The costumes and the front yard made quite a combination. It was a lot of fun, and we have pictures to remember the day by.
Something to be thankful for
Looking back at these two dinners, I’m glad I have the photographs. The boxes on the table remind me of the effort to keep Thanksgiving going during COVID. The Halloween food reminds me of the fun we had putting the two celebrations together in 2024.
There’s room in our family traditions for a change of plan, a costume or a skeleton on the vegetable tray.
Now, as I prepare for Thanksgiving this year, I’ve been looking back at our different gatherings and how they’ve changed over the years. This year’s dinner will be a smaller one because two families can’t join us for the celebration. It will feel different with a much smaller crowd, and we’ll miss having them here.
Even with fewer people, I expect we’ll have just as much fun in the kitchen while preparing the meal and just as lively a conversation around the table while eating it. I really enjoy getting family together for meals, whatever the size of the gathering.
The black gravy may need to remain a one-time experiment.