You're welcome, friend! It was only because I had just cooked a turkey and it was fresh in my mind.
It was an excellent suggestion, although in the end I didn't do it the graceful way you suggested, just yanked it out and it sprayed turkey juice in my face.
Also, the dish I was most excited about, the mushroom dressing, lingered in the oven too long and got dry and slightly burned. The other dishes ranged from fine to good but not exquisite. Lesson learned. If I do this again, I'm definitely paring down the menu and doing everything possible ahead of time.
I can't add any ancestral foods because items in the standard dinner are pretty much already my ancestral foods. I guess I could throw in haggis or a kidney pie, but ...
Colconnan would be good, but best saved for a simpler dinner.
But I do like fiddling with traditions. One year, when living in NYC, my then-future-now-ex-husband and I had Thanksgiving dinner in the diner that's often seen on Seinfeld. The food wasn't fantastic but the setting was fun.
I wonder if Chuck's 90-minute dinner and Lee's five-hour dinner might reflect a difference in what you're measuring and the length of time hanging out versus eating? I've Thanksgivings at my in-laws that lasted five hours, but most of it was standing around talking, maybe having light appetizers and a drink, and then maybe 90 minutes -- at most! -- eating dinner and dessert.
If I ate for five solid hours, I'd be pretty full.
