They can count on Michael's sister, Susan Horn-Moo, to bring at least two fabulous desserts from Boston. Niece Lauren Moo comes from Baltimore to contribute a pie or two; nephew David Moo comes from New York to take charge of the gravy.
Terry Newirth, the sister of Michael's first wife, makes three vegetable dishes, while Jill Horn, Michael's ex, supplies Bassett's cinnamon ice cream.
When they all sit down together - joined by Michael and Jill's three grown children, Susan Storb's mother, Terry's husband and children, and an occasional guest - the Horn-Storb Thanksgiving table represents a contemporary update to the familiar Norman Rockwell illustration.
"We both want to be with the kids on that day. It just doesn't make sense not to," said Jill, 58, who owns the Jill's Vorspeise food stand at the Reading Terminal Market.
"To compete for who gets the kids just seemed stupid," said Michael, 59, an architect with Horn, Blyth & Partners.
"We like having everyone at one table. That's what Thanksgiving should be - inclusive," said Susan Storb, 52, a travel administrator with the University of Pennsylvania.
Michael and Jill went their separate ways in 1976. For more than a decade afterward, the children (Alex, now 34; Gregory, now 32; and Abby, now 30) spent Thanksgiving with Michael, while Jill made her own plans.
In 1988, Michael moved into a new home and invited Jill to share Thanksgiving dinner. From that gesture sprang a tradition that continued even after Michael and Susan Storb married eight years ago.
Just before this year's dinner, Michael and Susan went to see What's Cooking, a movie that tracks four Los Angeles households in the throes of Thanksgiving preparations and assorted domestic conflicts involving hypercritical mothers-in-law, errant husbands, gay children, teen gangs, cross-cultural dating and boorish guests.
