Thanksgiving Memories

Traditions are especially meaningful at Thanksgiving, when we pause our hectic schedules to celebrate with family and friends. Here at Kovels, we thought we would share our treasured traditions in hopes they will make you smile and appreciate how memories are stirred by even the smallest items like pie servers or even the shape of butter.  

Happy Thanksgiving from our families to yours! 

Terry:  I bought this specifically to put on the Thanksgiving holiday table as a turkey centerpiece. It’s from the 1930s and I use it to hold holiday food or garden flowers.  It has graced our family Thanksgiving table for many years. After use, it is stored for the following year.  I like holiday-specific table decorations and have something for each holiday. 

 

Kim:  Every year our local grocery store, Publix Supermarkets, sells a pair of pilgrim salt and pepper shakers.  They are all dated and make a cute and functional addition to the table.  Mine is from 1999.  

 

Susan:  About 10 years ago, we discovered butter shaped like a turkey. It was hard to find last year—it took three weeks of stalking every grocery store in our area—but we found it. This year, we found it right away. We always put it on a small ceramic piece I found at a flea market years ago. 

 

Gay:  This silver plate pie server was a Christmas gift several years ago and has served up many Thanksgiving pumpkin and apple crumb pies since then. It is Adam pattern, made by National Silver Co. of New York from 1917 to about 1930. 

 

Janet:  We have a Thanksgiving heirloom in the family. It is a green cotton hand-embroidered tablecloth. For many years we had Thanksgiving dinner at our house.  Friends and relatives would come, some from out of town. A very close friend of the family came up with the idea, that if all the guests signed the tablecloth, that she would embroider over their signatures over the next year. She was an expert seamstress who worked at Cleveland’s Western Reserve Historical Society in the fashion wing and loved her work. 

The tablecloth would be sewn then washed and ready to put on the table the following year. We signed it four different times, in 1969, 1987, 1992, and 2000. Each corner bears the signatures. 

 

Elizabeth:  My parents always use this carving set on our Thanksgiving turkey. It has stag horn handles and may have come from Germany. It’s been in the family so long, we’re not quite sure where it’s from.