Week 12 Recap: Thanksgiving Dinner Tailgate

Bless this food at the RV Thanksgiving dinner feast

When you tailgate year after year with the same people, you form some special bonds. These people are some of your closest friends and become a second family to you. We’ve gone on vacations together (hello Dublin!), we’ve helped our friends through the death of spouses, we’ve seen people get married and have babies. We even have a few political arguments now and then. But at the end of the day, you know that these guys will have your back when your roll into enemy territory for a ballgame (sometimes, that is actually dangerous, unfortunately). You know that they will be there when one of you gets into serious accidents. We celebrate these friendships with the only way a RV tailgate can do it – with lots and lots of food! Welcome to the RV Thanksgiving Dinner!

Thanksgiving Dinner, RV Tailgate Style

There’s nothing quite like a giant meal that everyone contributes to to bring everyone together.

Everyone pitches in with their favorite recipes. This year, we had turkey, ham, brisket (oh my! the brisket!), meatballs, and pulled pork as the meats. Then tables and tables of side dishes – mac and cheese, sweet and regular potatoes, beans, corn dressing, carrots, peas, hashbrown casserole, and on and on. Then there was the dessert table – icebox cake, no bake eclair, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, raspberry torte, cookies, and more. Really, if you leave here hungry, you just were trying to leave hungry. My contribution was bacon brussel sprouts and a crumble cake.

The crowd at our Thanksgiving Dinner Feast from atop one of the nearby RVs.
The crowd at our Thanksgiving Dinner Feast from atop one of the nearby RVs.

Keeping Things Warm and Logistics

One of the toughest things about the Thanksgiving dinner is making sure the food is ready and warm on time. This year, we took advantage of a pull-behind smoker. This let us put all the dishes together to keep warm. It was crucial to being able to deliver all the food warm at the appointed time. With small RV ovens, it just would not have happened all on time. And with the weather finally turning cold this weekend, no way the food could sit out on the table for long!

Your best friends at a large deal like this: the disposable aluminum pan and disposable serving spoons. I know it isn’t exactly the greenest thing in the world, but sometimes convenience is really important. You can heat the pans in the oven, stove, or smoker. You can put them in the fridge and freezer. You don’t have to keep moving the food between different pans. And at the end of the meal, you don’t have to track down your favorite casserole dish or serving utensils. As it was, I still lost one serving utensil (there are never enough!) and a hand towel used as a potholder.

Drink Our Whiskey Clear

Powers whiskey next to the campfire!
Powers whiskey next to the campfire!

This weekend really showcased how great of friends we all are. From staying up late with the newest to the RV tailgate – sharing stories, drinking whiskey, and enjoying the finally fall weather! We started the year in Ireland and fell in love with Powers Whiskey. This is the same group that drank an Irish bar, in Dublin, out of Irish whiskey. So to say that we like this stuff may just be an understatement. We were fortunate to find some state side and the drinking commenced. What better way to end the home tailgate season than by finishing off some more Powers whiskey?

The Georgia Tech fight song references “drink our whiskey clear.” Now, some say this refers to moonshine (which has also become very popular at the RV tailgates). Some say it means that we drink it clear, as in gone. We definitely drank all the whiskey gone this weekend!

Hate Week Commences

To Hell With Georgia!We weren’t out of the stadium on Saturday before we heard our first “What’s the Good Word?” chant. As soon as the second to last game is over, Hate Week begins. Most other places, this is called Rivalry Week, but here in Georgia, it’s Hate Week. The Georgia-Georgia Tech rivalry has been dubbed “Clean Old Fashioned Hate” but there’s nothing clean about it.

If you are new to the rivalry, when Tech fans yell “What’s the Good Word?” the appropriate response is “To Hell With Georgia!” This repeats three times and the last question is “How Bout Them Dogs?” to which you respond “Piss on Em!” Yeah, we don’t like them.

We’ll see you in Athens next week! Make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter to see updates on all the shenanigans from the tailgate.

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