Getting together, giving back, and gorging on all the turkey, corn, and sweet potato pie: These are a few of the things many people fill Thanksgiving Day with, and celebrity families are no exception.
Thanksgiving is a meaningful holiday full of reflection, grace, gratitude, and love. As much as the holiday has become a celebration of family, friends, food, and all there is to be grateful for, it’s important to recognize the “Thanksgiving myth” — “that friendly Indians, unidentified by tribe, welcome the Pilgrims to America, teach them how to live in this new place, sit down to dinner with them and then disappear… [handing] off America to white people so they can create a great nation dedicated to liberty, opportunity and Christianity for the rest of the world to profit,” according to historian and author David Silverman — and acknowledge the violence and trauma faced by North America’s Indigenous Peoples as a grave consequence of European settlers usurping their land.
Ever tried savory sweet potatoes or roasted rainbow carrots? @MarthaStewart is the Thanksgiving queen. 👸 https://t.co/7Nu2eYHOcr
— SheKnows (@SheKnows) November 1, 2020
In fact, many Indigenous Peoples have observed the National Day of Mourning on the day of Thanksgiving since 1970 as a way to grieve the genocide and colonialism of their ancestors, and out of respect and a desire to learn, many celebrities have begun doing the same.
From Angelina Jolie traveling out of the country with her kids and Alicia Silverstone advocating for a change in tradition to match the change in the times, to Katie Holmes admirably participating in an annual Turkey Trot run with her family and Gloria and Emilio Estefan giving back to their local community, here’s how some of Hollywood’s most famous observe Thanksgiving.
Gabrielle Union & Dwyane Wade
The Union-Wade family gets down with the usual Thanksgiving food feast, but they add an unexpected flair to their holiday gathering: Karaoke.
The couple documented their family’s enthusiastic singing session on their respective Instagram Stories in 2021, sharing snippets of every member of the fam from Dwyane to little Kaavia belting their hearts out in the name of holiday spirit.
Jessica Alba & Cash Warren
Things get spicy in the Alba-Warren house on Thanksgiving! The mom of three (Honor, 14, Have, 11, and Hayes, 4) told InStyle, “Cash, me, and my parents throw down in the kitchen, and my dad makes the yummiest tender turkeys. He makes a spicy version seasoned with fresh jalapeños and a classic version with all the fixings.”
Blake Lively & Ryan Reynolds
Proving once again she’s just like us, Blake Lively told Us Weekly Thanksgiving is all about food, food, and more food. The soon-to-be mom of four (James, 7, Inez, 6, Betty, 3, and Baby Reynolds, due early 2023) said, “I plan to eat, relax and just do nothing, which is so exciting because that really doesn’t happen often! On Thanksgiving, I’ll cook an entire feast, a 12-course meal. And it’s hard to pick a favorite, but my sweet potato casserole is pretty good.”
Angelina Jolie
Mother of six (Maddox, 21, Pax, 18, Zahara, 17, Shiloh, 16, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 14) Angelina Jolie prefers not to celebrate Thanksgiving, instead spending the days surrounding the American holiday traveling internationally with her kids.
A source spoke on her behalf in 2010, telling PopEater, “She definitely doesn’t want to teach her multi-cultural family how to celebrate a story of murder.”
Sheryl Crow
It’s all about gratitude and family time for Sheryl Crow and her two sons Wyatt, 15, and Levi, 12, on Thanksgiving. “We get together and overeat and nap all day and watch ball games and overeat some more,” the country singer joked to Us Weekly. “I have a very close-knit family and we serve up a lot of gratitude,” she said.
Sarah Jessica Parker & Matthew Broderick
For Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick’s brood, it just wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without an obscene amount of pumpkin pie. The mom of three (son James, 20, and twin daughters Marion and Tabitha, 13) told Bon Appetit, “I really, really, really love pumpkin pie. I didn’t think I was a pie person, but we have been buying our pies at a place in New York called the Little Pie Company for 10 or 15 years.”
She hilariously continued, “The truth is we get way too many pumpkin pies and we can’t fit them anywhere. We put them on the floor of the laundry room or in the back of a minivan where it’s cold. We put them outside because they don’t fit in the fridge, and we eat the pies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My daughter, Tabitha, goes crazy for them.”
Garcelle Beauvais
For Spiderman: Homecoming actress Garcelle Beauvais, Thanksgiving is a family occasion spent with her three sons, Oliver, 31, and twin Jaid and Jax, 15.
She told Us Weekly, “Thanksgiving is a big deal for us. I take pride in cooking the turkey. The boys will go around the neighborhood and collect colorful fall leaves; we use them to decorate the table. The boys usually say the prayers before we eat!”
Gloria & Emilio Estefan
Gloria and Emilio Estefan love giving back to their local community on Thanksgiving alongside their kids, Nayib, 42, and Emily, 27, and their grandson, Sasha, 10. “We have a big party at one of our restaurants and have [the] homeless and different organizations [like] Big Brothers and Big Sisters [over]. We serve them food and have face painting for the kids,” the singer told Us Weekly.
Julie Bowen
Modern Family alum Julie Bowen gets crafty on Thanksgiving with her three sons, Oliver, 15, and twins John and Gustav, 13. “We take all the carved Halloween pumpkins and turn them into turkeys by decorating them with feathers,” she told Us Weekly.
Lindsay Price & Curtis Stone
Beverly Hills, 90210 alum Lindsay Price and celebrity chef Curtis Stone share two sons, Hudson, 10, and Emerson, 8. Their Thanksgiving traditions are slightly more unique than the standard American family’s, as Stone is an Australian native.
Price told Us Weekly, “At the end of every Thanksgiving meal we pass a beautiful old bottle that has been in my family for a long time around the table and a bowl full of corn kernels. With each thing we say we are thankful for we drop a kernel in the bottle.”
She continued, “Because Thanksgiving is an American tradition, it’s relatively new to Curtis. He always nails the traditional turkey and all the sides, but we add an Aussie dessert: Banoffee pie, a banana caramel pie!”
Cher
For Cher, mom of two (Chaz 53, and Elijah, 46), Thanksgiving is a day for family and reflection of the atrocities of the holiday’s past. The legendary actress and singer tweeted, “4 me & my family, it’s a day, when every1 is free 4 dinner and a movie, Not 2 celebrate the beginning of a GREAT crime.”
She pointed out exactly what makes the day a dark one, tweeting, “Stealing Land, from a ppl, Who believed, Owning Land Was Like Owning SKY! We gave them Blankets laced w/ Smallpox” in regard to the Indigenous Peoples who came into contact with European settlers.
Tia Mowry
Tia Mowry, mom of Cree, 11, and Cairo, 4, has a passion for fashion around the holidays. She shared in an Instagram post, “Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because it means I get to spend time with the people I love most.”
She added, “But another thing I love about it is dressing up with my family — it’s our little tradition! I spend time weeks in advance looking for the perfect outfits for the kids and myself and it’s something I love and cherish so much!”
Gwen Stefani & Blake Shelton
Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton turn Thanksgiving into a weeklong family getaway in Shelton’s home state of Oklahoma. Stefani, mom of sons Kingston, 16, Zuma, 14 and Apollo, 8, told Entertainment Tonight, “We all fly out to Oklahoma, like 30 of us. Blake has this bed and breakfast hotel that we all stay at, and it’s just pretty incredible. We have fun, we all cook together, it’s fun.”
Shelton added, “This’ll be, I wanna say the fourth [year], but it might be more than that. We’re taking all the Stefanis and then the Shelton bunch are gonna meet up there and just literally [spend] like, five days away.”
Katie Holmes
Katie Holmes and her family are those impressive Thanksgiving Day run people we all wish we could be! During an appearance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, the mom of one (Suri, 16) shared, “Many years ago, my dad started this tradition where we all do this run in the local park. It’s a three-mile run called the Turkey Trot. There’s even a prize, which I haven’t won yet. But it’s really fun.”
The Hadid Family
Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick’s family isn’t the only celebrity group who puts pie on a pedestal on Thanksgiving. Mom of one, Gigi Hadid, shared with WWD, “I always make pies for Thanksgiving. I’m the pie girl. I love rhubarb pie; I love apple pie and pumpkin pie and blackberry pie — but sometimes that mixes with the rhubarb into one [pie]. Well, we have a big family and they’re very picky, so I do lots of choices of pie.”
Kyle Richards
ER alum Kyle Richards gets competitive with her sisters on Thanksgiving — all in the name of fun, of course.
The actress and mom of four daughters (Farrah, 34, Alexia, 26, Sophia, 22, and Portia, 14) told Us Weekly, “My sister Kim and I have competitions with our turkeys on Thanksgiving, and my sister Kathy loves my famous mashed potatoes. I really have fun cooking during the holidays. My kids love to help me. It’s just family tradition to have everyone cooking together.”
Luke Bryan
Luke Bryan, his wife Caroline Boyers, and their sons Thomas, 14, and Tatum, 12, like to go where it’s warm come Thanksgiving. He told his American Idol co-hosts, “We sometimes go to the beach [in Apalachicola, Florida]. A fun turkey tradition for us is getting fresh oysters and we sit and shuck oysters all week.”
Alicia Silverstone
Mother of 11-year-old Bear, Alicia Silverstone, advocates for animal rights on Thanksgiving. She wrote on her blog, The Kind Life, “We aren’t living in the same times [as the original Indigenous Peoples and European settlers]. We aren’t just killing a bird once a year for necessity and nourishment; we’re killing 660,000 animals an hour in this country alone, every single day.”
Silverstone participates in Farm Sanctuary’s Adopt a Turkey program each year and encourages others to do the same.
Kristen Bell & Dax Shepard
Prioritizing quality time and mindfulness, Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard escape into nature with their kids during Thanksgiving. Bell told E! News, “We rent a motorhome. We go to the sand dunes with the kids and cell phones don’t work and we just go off-roading and we make food in a little motorhome kitchen. We sit out and play cards and games and that’s our Thanksgiving tradition.”
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