Thanksgiving Memories
When I was little, Thanksgiving was all about the food and the company. My benchmark for “Good Thanksgiving” was set during the year that cousins came to visit and we had two tables packed with people. I loved sitting at the kid table with my cousins and friends. I think I was about eight and it was hard for follow up feasts to match that one. Then during my teen years we spent several Thanksgivings in a row at my great-grandmothers retirement trailer. I remember complaining about this. I remember that it didn’t even feel Thanksgivingingish because there was not room for us to sit around her tiny table. Instead we loaded paper plates and sat in whatever space we could find available. In hindsight, I am glad that we spent Thanksgiving with Great-Grandma. She did not live long after that. By about the third year I finally absorbed the fact that delighting an old woman was more important than sitting around a single table.
I still remember the Thanksgiving of my freshman year at college. There were three siblings at BYU so we met together in my empty kitchen, my roommates all off visiting relatives. The food was lacking, but we were together. Being together was even more important when the news came of the house fire in our childhood home. One pet died and much in the house was damaged beyond repair, but all the people were fine. We were very thankful that year.
The year I was dating Howard I learned the meaning of “big Thanksgiving.” I went with him to a relative’s house where they crammed five tables and at least thirty people into their front room. In later years the people were familiar and friendly, but that first year I only spoke to Howard and his brother. We had our own little pocket of fun in the crowded space.
When the kids arrived I had my own chance to shape Thanksgiving celebrations. I learned that none of my kids are fans of the southern cornbread dressing that I considered an essential part of the feast during my growing years. I also learned that kids will be mortally offended if I serve a roasted chicken instead of a turkey. It seemed logical at the time. There were so few of us to eat the bird. I only did it once, but to this day the kids double check to make sure that there will actually be turkey for Thanksgiving.
There have been small feasts and big feasts. There have been celebrations full of people and lonely ones. There have been sad events and happy ones. And yet somehow it is always Thanksgiving. A thread links through them and ties them together. I love that we have a day which celebrates gratitude. I love that we have a day to look around at our circumstances, whatever they may be, and find cause for joy. I am thankful for many things today, but among them I am thankful for Thanksgiving itself. Because the holiday is more than just the food and the company.