Thanksgiving Memories

This year will be my first time to host Thanksgiving at my house. Oddly enough, it will be nothing like what I've dreamed of doing for years. As a young girl, I hovered at my gram's elbow in the kitchen for so many Thanksgiving dinners, I think I could do one in my sleep. The first year after my gram broke her hip, I did it at her house. I got up at 4am and ran next door to her house, knowing that a broken hip was not likely to keep her down. I remember her sitting there in the kitchen as I cleaned and stuffed the turkey, my eyes barely open. I kind of took over the job in my gram's waning years, some years doing most of it at my mother's house (guess I hogged the kitchen)!

Since I've been married, the feast has been a cooperative affair between my mother, sister and I. Somehow I managed to claim the turkey and fixin's as my turf, leaving the pies to my sis, and the dishes to Mom (I claim no experience with a dishwasher)!

I've looked forward to the day when I would carry on the tradition in my own home and this is the year. But like I said, it will be nothing like I've planned.

First of all, it will be my in-laws, not my own family, that I host. Hopefully the burner covers I ordered will arrive in time for me to turn my stove into a buffet server. Half of us will eat in the diningroom and the other half in the livingroom at the card table. (There's only eight of us, so by now you should be able to gauge the size of my kitchen!) Instead of Gram's fine china, we'll eat off of the best Dixie plates money can buy. I guess we'll toast our pop cans in lieu of goblets filled with our traditional cranberry juice. I'm sure we'll pass on my Serbian grandfather's toast of "Nostrovia" which my sister and I purposely mispronounced as "nostrils all over ya!"

But hey, it will still be Thanksgiving. A day to give thanks and for so much. I don't know why it is that not all of our dreams come true. Perhaps sometimes we're not dreaming the right dreams. And look at all the blessings we have which we never could have dreamed about. God knows exactly who and what we need in our lives, and has blessed us exceedingly abundantly.

My sister and I were talking today about Thanksgivings past. We both long for another like we enjoyed growing up. The day began with a festive, yet formal dinner around 1:00 pm, followed by the women gathering in the kitchen to handle the dishes while the men solved the problems of the world. Then my sister would crank out the tunes on the piano, and occasionally Gram would chime in with her rendition of "They Go Wild, Simply Wild Over Me," a song dedicated to her loveable but eccentric sister. When we were younger, my sister and I provided the entertainment in the form of plays and programs, specially written and produced by the two of us. What productions we had! By 5:00 pm most of us had found a comfortable corner and dozed off, until we heard the rattling in the kitchen which meant an encore of leftovers.

We both know we can't go back again! So this Thanksgiving we'll just indulge ourselves in some very pleasant memories, while making some new ones. Next to giving thanks, isn't that what we all cherish most about Thanksgiving - the memories?