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Byline: Culture Shock Leanne Potts Of The Journal
Friends, Family Flock Together for Unconventional Thanksgiving Feasts
Thanksgiving never really looked like that Norman Rockwell illustration, the one that shows an apron-draped grandma serving a gigantic turkey to Caucasian kin aglow with beatific light.
For most people the nationally proscribed feast looks more like Charlie Brown's, with a loose collection of family and friends dining on a hodgepodge of food as well as a turkey. The glow is the blue-green one coming from a TV tuned to football games.
Since Thanksgiving is a secular holiday with no dictatorial mascot, the rules for its celebration are looser. You can have tamales with your turkey or you can have turkey-shaped tofu.
The common denominator for the fourth Thursday in November seems to be a communal gathering, somewhere, for a big meal, of some sort. A time to share our good fortune with loved ones.
Chong Han of Albuquerque will be eating Thanksgiving dinner with around 15 friends and family members. But she will be serving Korean barbecue beef and rice alongside the turkey.