Stouffers Can Stuff It. A guest post.

Andrea Edwards is a regular reader of the Modern Day 50’s Housewife.   She sent in the following guest post for all to enjoy.   She didn’t include a title, but after reading it, I thought Stouffers Can Stuff It sounded just about right.  Enjoy!  A guest post, by Andrea Edwards:

Somewhere between the Great Pumpkin visiting and Old Saint Nick sliding down the chimney lies Thanksgiving. It’s a day rich in the traditions of family, friends, football and, yes, food. While most of these traditions have remained constant over the years, one has clearly adapted to the instant-gratification driven society we have become: the food.

Mashed potatoes in a box, stuffing in a bag, vegetables in a can, pies in the frozen section, and whipped cream in a tub. And if all that pre-packaged food is still too much work, one can always purchase an entire Thanksgiving dinner, picture perfect and ready for family and friends, right at the local grocery store. Women of the 1950s would be grateful for some of the modern conveniences we have, but would rather have skipped their weekly beauty parlor appointment than allow Stouffer’s or Marie Callender to prepare Thanksgiving dinner. Many of us would say that spending time with those we love is the best part of Thanksgiving, yet refuse to take the time to prepare a home-cooked meal for them. It’s sad enough that we need a day on the calendar to remind us to come together and be thankful, but to imply our families aren’t worth the time it takes to prepare a home-cooked meal… the women before us would be appalled!

Have you started planning your Thanksgiving meal yet? Has family booked their flights to visit? Are you looking forward to the day with anticipation or are you dreading the impending visit that you see more as an obligation than a joy? We all have so much going on day-to-day it would seem almost impossible for life to slow down enough that we could put forth an effort to plan and prepare a Thanksgiving meal. Work, kids, community events, volunteer work, husbands, and a myriad of other responsibilities seem like the perfect excuses to order that ready-made Thanksgiving dinner. I would like to propose that these very things are the exact reason that we need to slow down and give our families what they deserve: a meal that would make the women of the 50s proud; a meal prepared by our own two hands. Everyday life has our attention on a daily basis, to the point that our own families sometimes come in second place.

Is planning and preparing Thanksgiving dinner always a pleasure? Of course not! It’s a lot of work! But there is something about your husband looking at you and saying, Honey, this is amazing! Or a neighbor who had nowhere to go taking their first bite of your great grandmother’s secret recipe for bourbon sweet potatoes, and savoring every flavor, that makes the effort all worthwhile.

Modern Day 50s women unite! Let’s take back Thanksgiving and bring back the traditions of those before us. Let’s mash our own potatoes, stuff our own turkeys, bake our own pies, and most of all, let’s create our own memories that will last a lifetime.

—Andrea Edwards