Thanksgiving Tradition and a Pumpkin Soup

There are so many things to love about Thanksgiving.

The time spent with family

The food

The desserts

The pie

The tradition

My favorite of all of those comes down to a tie between the time spend with family and the food. Or maybe it's the desserts and the pie? Or maybe its the tradition. Okay, okay, it's all of it.

My favorite tradition started 12 years ago when I celebrated my first Thanksgiving with my now husband. We woke up early and went to Starbucks for a warm beverage. My favorite is a Caramel Macchiato with extra caramel, and Zach's is a Mocha Velencia. (Seriously Starbucks, bring back the Valencia.)

With our hot coffees in hand, we drove down to Riverside State Park and walked along the Spokane River. The best morning! 

To this day, I still love doing this and want to send THANK YOU shout out to the lovely employees at Starbucks that work on Thanksgiving Morning. 
You make my day!

One tradition that my mom started several years ago, is to make a soup to start off our always wonderful Thanksgiving meal. 

Cause why not add one more delicious something to our already big menu of delicious somethings? 

Since we clearly don't have enough pumpkin in our menu with the pumpkin pie and the pumpkin bread, and the pumpkin seeds we snack on; we now enjoy a nice cup of pumpkin soup as well.

It is a beautiful soup from Rachael Ray.

This soup is savory, creamy and delicious, with a little spice kick at the start and a sweet finish from the cran-berry, apple relish. The perfect addition to any Thanksgiving meal. 

It's my turn to make it this year and I'm going to make it ahead of time and put it in the crockpot for the big day. Yum!

You can find the recipe HERE.

Photo Courtesy of The Food Network

What is your favorite Thanksgiving tradition?

I'd love to hear about it!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

K