Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday I think. I love the food we have. I love having family around. I even like the weather. We finally get a break from all those hot and humid days and it's not snowing yet (usually). I remember Thanksgivings back on the farm. Usually my married sisters would come home with their families. My grandparents would be there and maybe an uncle and aunt or two. I remember always having this bowl that looked sort of like wood, that held the mixed nuts (still in the shell). There were also little places in the dish that held the nut crackers and pickers. I didn't really enjoy eating the nuts, but boy were they fun to crack. My mom also had this reddish-orange, glass dish with a black base that she put a fruit "bouquet" in....at least that is what it looked like to me....draping grapes and bananas, beautiful fragrant oranges and shiny red apples, a bountiful looking thing. We would usually make a fire in the fireplace with those special color logs that I always got so excited about, but they never really produced the colors that I had imagined them to. I remember one year after I had been saved, I made all the place cards and had spent hours looking up a different "thankful" verse to put on each one. My mom had gotten the idea one holiday to put an older white cloth tablecloth on and have everyone write their names or greetings on it. Later on we were to embroider it and applique fall material on in the shapes of leaves and turkeys. One of those 1980 something tablecloths is still in the basement "in progress". I love all those memories. My only regret is that we live so far away that we can't use those tablecloths with family. I have always longed to have that kind of thanksgiving again. The kind where you set the table with your prettiest and fanciest dishes and silverware and glasses....everything is sparkling in candlelight and you "sit" down with all your loved ones and share a prayer, conversation and a beautiful dinner. I'm losing my energy bit by bit to do such a thing....fibromyalgia is starting to take it's toll.

For the last 17 years we have been involved in a different version of thanksgiving, which has it's good points, but also it's bad. The good points are eating a Thanksgiving dinner, a bit of fellowship with family and looking at the black Friday ads. One time a couple of us actually left and went shopping....that was different and entertaining. There use to be a football game in the front yard, but that generation is getting older and more fragile. (me included) :-)

I've been reading a historical fiction series by Jeanette Oke and I realized that we can get caught up in the whole tradition thing and we need to just enjoy the holidays for what they are at the time. In these books when they are stuck in the middle of nowhere in the early 1900's, no turkey, no fixings, no family.....eating biscuits made out of bear lard and beaver on their plate...it makes me appreciate the foam plates, warm house, plenty of traditional food and family.

I am thankful that I have family and that they are for the most part healthy even though they are far away. I am thankful for the family we have here although it is not the same. I'm thankful that God has blessed us with a family, a warm house, food, clothes on our backs and the ability to have people over for dinner whether it be for Thanksgiving or just dinner.

What do you do for thanksgiving? What are your traditions? Make some new ones, enjoy the old, cherish the memories and be thankful........maybe I should remind myself of all the thankful verses :-)

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving!!!