As you can see I have a theme going on around here lately. See…I am a holiday ho. I enjoy passing on some of the traditions I grew up with and creating new ones for my kids. I also don’t like change too much (unless I initiate it…can we say control freak much?) and I almost become fanatical about preserving tradition. Oh who are we kidding, I love nostalgia! So I thought I would share my memories of Thanksgivings’ past. My own version of Ebenezer Scrooge sort of….except in my world Jim Carrey couldn’t get near it.

In school I loved this time of year. We would create things to decorate the class and then take them home for Thanksgiving break. Things like turkeys made from cutouts that were tracings of our hands. And even diarama’s of the first Thanksgiving day. Remember making those? With old shoeboxes? Gah kids are missing out these days! We also had a play every year in our classroom reliving the first Thanksgiving. We reminded each other of how the first immigrants survived thanks to the Native Americans. I always wanted to be one of the Indians, they were way cooler in my eyes. We would practice for a couple weeks and my grandmother and mother would come to see our small production with their big butts crammed in our tiny seats. Smiles on their faces and my grandmother snapping off 200 hundred pictures in 20 minutes.

We would get off those three days for Thanksgiving breaks. I would be so excited because I would see some family I hadn’t seen in awhile. I come from a large family. Not all would be there, some we only saw at weddings and funerals. But I had two sets of aunts and uncles and 3 male cousins that would come to my grandmother’s home (whom we lived with) and it was a full house. My grandmother and mom would be bustling in the kitchen getting things ready. My aunts would step in to help, I would try and get yelled at for being in the way. The men would be in the living room watching football and discussing work. My cousins would be kidnapping me and locking me in the basement and I would freak out. They would get in trouble and kicked out and I would be told to suck it up and stop making all that racket. The adults ate in the dining room, us kids would be at the kitchen table. Food would be everywhere. A huge turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, creamed corn, greenbeans, hot bread, and cranberry sauce. We kids would be engaging in our usual bickering and the occasional food fight. The adults would be talking more about work and whatever other upcoming events they had their way. I would also try to sneak my green beans into the trash. Oh how I hated those! Most times I was successful because the adults were too busy chatting to see me at the trash (my father had the view of the trashcan from his place at the dining room table). We kids would be hollered at 9390357905 times that we were being too rambunctious. Then dessert…..oh wonderful and glorious dessert. I always had the apple pie after fighting with my mother for 30 minutes that I hated pumpkin pie. After 34 years she still seems to think I like pumpkin pie.

Our Thanksgivings weren’t perfect. We fought alot. When my grandmother died, my aunts and uncles and cousins stopped coming over. My parents would fight alot. I got in trouble alot. But it will always hold a special place in my heart from those early years. I don’t have dinner with my family now, I live 500 miles away. Instead we have an intimate dinner at my inlaws home. Sometimes my sister in law and her family come, sometimes they don’t. This time last year my brother in law was alive and present. I remember that was when he said “I won’t get cancer because I don’t want cancer”. He said this when we discussed cigarrette smoking, addiction, and the long term effects. I am sure we will be thinking about him alot this year. My mother in law isn’t cooking, instead the inlaws are coming to my house. I get to make everything, fuss at the kids, and enjoy every minute of it.

I think I will look for some shoeboxes and show my kids how to make a diarama. What are you going to do this Thanksgiving?

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