My Thanksgiving dinner with my family seemed pretty typical in my eyes but after talking in class about how differently people prepare, serve and even what they eat on Thanksgiving really made me realize my family is quite unique. My immediate family is about 40 people alone so whenever we have a holiday or special event there is sure to be a lot of people, and with a lot of people requires a lot of food. Being my family is Italian we had the antipasto, including all meats and cheeses with crackers and bread, stuffed mushrooms, a hot antipasto, different kinds of dips and spreads and other picking foods. However, even though we are Italian we do not have pasta on Thanksgiving.

But we do make a standard Thanksgiving meal including mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, corn, gravy, cranberries, and of couse the turkey. My family made three turkeys this year because of how many people and because we all love turkey. One was a regular turkey in the oven and we made two deep fried turkeys. The deep fried turkey is my favorite. I realized on Thanksgiving that my family is not very consistent on gender roles. The women basically cooked all the food, which is typical. However, when it came to the deep fried turkey, my dad and uncle stepped in the kitchen and took charge. They prepared a dry rub for the turkey themselves, definitely not how my mother and aunts would do it. They threw together random spices in a bowl and hoped for the best and then rubbed the turkey very roughly with their bare hands. To my surprise, the dry rub came out amazing. Also, since deep frying a turkey is so dangerous the men took charge of that too.  When the turkeys were finished, my uncle knew it was his responsibility to carve them. And even though for majority of the day the men sat on the couch and watched football, I realized when it was time to clean up everyone helped a little, not just the women.