Posts Tagged ‘tree-hugger’

Itty Bits: 100-Mile Thanksgiving

Posted on November 12th, 2010 by Tonia No Comments

Thanksgiving is an awesome holiday for many reasons, the main one being it is a chance to gather and give thanks for the many, many blessings in our lives.  The other main reason being that the holiday centers around the Three Holy F’s:  food, family, and football.  My three most-favorite things!  😉

We have so many things to be grateful for this year- it’s a little ridiculous.  I kind of feel like we hit the celestial jackpot in 2010…Mike’s brother got married to an incredible woman, Mike’s sister & brother-in-law had their first child {making us an aunt and uncle for the first time in our lives}, we got married and took an incredible honeymoon, we purchased our dream-hobby-farm and moved, I started working from home {a very welcome change that makes having a somewhat-boring-full-time-job a WHOLE lot more bearable}, and so much more.  AND the Packers aren’t half bad this year.  WHEW!

In other words, this Thanksgiving is kind of extra-special because of the remarkably fantastic year it has been, and I am really looking forward to the big feast and the moment just before we all dig in, when we bow our heads and collectively lift up our prayers of thanks.

SO!  For Thanksgiving 2010, I challenge you to break the status quoe and try something a little different.  It’s called the 100-Mile Thanksgiving Challenge and it’s brought to you by TreeHugger, which is a fantastic website and you should check it out if you don’t already have it bookmarked and read it religiously every day…ahem.  I’m slightly addicted.

The challenge is very simple: make your Thanksgiving meal local.  Buy groceries that were grown/raised within 100 miles of your home.  Send TreeHugger your 100-mile menu.  They will be voting on the best local Thanksgiving meal and announce the winner on the week of Thanksgiving!!

Eating local is one of the most important and best things we can do as a society.  It’s good for the economy AND the environment.  Mike and I are thrilled to live in a town that is highly supportive of local farms.  The bakery down the road uses locally grown wheat for all their goods, we’re able to get our milk, cheese, and ice-cream from a dairy that is about five minutes from our house, there are apple and cherry orchards everywhere around here, and 15 minutes to our north is a beautiful free-range pig farm where we get brats, bacon, ribs and the likes.  You’ve never seen happier, healthier pigs.

This challenge will be more difficult for those of you living in urban areas, I know, but get creative with it: do you have a relative coming to visit from a farming area?  Ask them to bring along some local produce or meat if they’re able.  And if you’re not able to make everythingon the table be from local sources, at least try to make some of it be- the turkey, the sweet potatoes, the green beans, the cranberries {this one shouldn’t be tough for anyone in WI…it’s the cranberry STATE!  So I don’t wanna hear no excuses.}  😛

We haven’t done an Itty Bits Challenge for some time now, so you’ve been off the hook.  Make this one count!  Happy Thanksgiving!