Meaning Conversations & Simple Recipes – The Thanksgiving Challenge

Are you ready for Thanksgiving? I’m not yet! But, I’m working my way toward make this an improved and memorable Thanksgiving.

Whether Thanksgiving is a late lunch or a dinner, I’ve always found two challenges every Thanksgiving:

• One: Meaningful conversations
• Two: Simple Recipes with easy instructions, and less than eight ingredients

The Thanksgiving Challenge 

One: The conversation 

I do love family gatherings, and Thanksgiving for me is THE family gathering of the year. I don’t know about your Thanksgiving, but mine involves gathering around 13 people at my parent’s place, which is more than even at Christmas. And some of these folks I only see on this day of the year.

This makes Thanksgiving a unique opportunity to catch up, but sometimes also makes it hard to start or engage in a meaningful conversation.

It’s very frustrating because you want to listen and share, but instead, you end up having meaningless conversations about nothing in particular.

Meaningful Conversation 

Sharing our stories and listening to the stories of others makes Thanksgiving a much more enjoyable and meaningful experience.

Our shyness and our introversion can make us feel vulnerable to others, and instead of feeling comfortable, we get stressed and anxious.

When conversations end and silence starts, we find it easier to come up with a task to do and we go to the kitchen or grab our phone – anything to avoid the awkwardness of saying nothing.

But, you know what? There are simple questions you can use to kick start and spark a beautiful conversation that will unite you with your family and friends.

Try these simple questions for starting a wonderful conversation:

1. What’s your favorite Thanksgiving food?
2. What’s your happiest childhood Thanksgiving memory?
3. What do you enjoy most about the Thanksgiving holiday?
4. What’s the one experience for which you are most thankful this year?
5. What’s the one thing you’ve learned this year for which you are most thankful?

Two: Recipes

Why is it that almost all Thanksgiving recipes have 12 ingredients and dozens of instruction steps? Some are so complex, you need to be a top chef to even attempt them!

Why are there no vegetarian ideas for this holiday? What about recipes for those who are abroad, or who are spending Thanksgiving with just one other person?

Easy and Simple Recipes with 7 or Fewer Ingredients

To answer all these questions, I’ve published:

(click the title or the image for the recipes)

For those of you who love videos, I’ve published three video recipes on YouTube for this Thanksgiving holiday.

Video Recipes for Thanksgiving

(click the title or the image to watch the videos)