Thanksgiving is humongous in the US. Whole cooking magazines are devoted to it, people become intensely traditional about it. How else could you explain t hat growing up in my household, Thanksgiving included turkey, ham, creamed onions, orange jello, and enchiladas. The enchiladas were because one part of the family came from the American Midwest -- Chicago -- were that food known as "hot dish" or "casserole" came from -- think canned green beans, canned cream of mushroom soup, and Durkee fried onions. Once that part of the family moved to the American West -- California, they turned the "casserole" into something vaguely but not really Mexican, enchiladas. Families develop intense phobias about certain foods -- in my family's case, it was hysteria over making anything involving a roux -- including gravy and white sauce (for the creamed onions) and passive-aggressive wars would break out where someone would assing the creamed onions or gravy knowing that other members of the family could NOT make these foods. One reason many of these events turn into dessert gorge-fests (a dessert per person) is because no one will part with his or her favorite dessert.