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Saturday, November 23, 2013

T-minus 100 hours till T-day hits the table......

RUN! RUN! RUN!
Okay, let's talk about Thanksgiving.
No, we're not gonna talk TURKEY. 
No, we're not gonna talk STUFFING.
Or mashed potatoes or corn or squash or pumpkin pie or appletinis......
Nope. 
We will save that for another day.
I'm just going to talk about Thanksgiving. 
Interestingly, in some recent research I did on the origins of Thanksgiving foods and Thanksgiving (don't ask me why I do this stuff...), I was struck by how Thanksgiving has transformed so dramatically from it's very beginning.   I guess we can say that about all holidays but somehow I figured that everything about Thanksgiving was deeply rooted in a tradition that began on that very first Thanksgiving way back with the Pilgrims and the Indians.  I must have been absent on all those days when we learned about it in school....I am sure I was home helping my mother get ready for Thanksgiving.  So, I can't be too unhappy about that......hey, I might have always erroneously  thought they served pasta and sausage stuffing on that first Thanksgiving but I have wonderful memories of those extra hours I got to spend with my mother while she was on this earth....
Anyway.....I am not going to talk about that first Thanksgiving.  But, if you want to know more.....here's a good place to check it out....
In many ways, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  There's a peacefulness about it that is comforting.  Although there's lots of work to be done (ugh...you should see my list right now!), there's not that EXTRA CRAZY work to be done---like gifts and over-the-top decorating and parties, parties, parties.  It's just one day.   The idea of sharing a meal with the people you love and having a day that is just all about being with those people just feels right.  I can't say I always felt this way.  But,  over the years, I formed a new love of Thanksgiving in my own home and with my family.   Clearly, I've passed that love on to my children.  My heart just about burst with joy the other night when my daughter was describing our Thanksgivings to her boyfriend and telling him how much she loved everything about it.  She made it all sound so wonderful and delicious and  magical and just oozing with beauty....which I hope it really and truly is!!!   And, I can't tell you how thrilled I am that my son is all about Thanksgiving.....he asked me to send him his "wine shopping list" and has been texting me with ideas on what he will cook for the feast.   He's making his beer list and figuring out football watching schedules with Carmen and my nephew.  
Hearing all of this and listening in on all of this has made Thanksgiving all the more wonderful and easier to love....
Perhaps the best thing about any holiday (or just any ordinary day) is making the memories that will be carried throughout the years.   Sure, we can cook and clean and shop and decorate and stand on our heads until we are crazy and exhausted--or both.  Sometimes that's what it takes to make a day or an event or a holiday happen.  Yet, in the end, what really matters is that somewhere in all of that....there's a moment that happens that never leaves the hearts or the minds of those we love so dearly. 
And, if we are really lucky.....we will have helped make that moment happen......


1 comment:

Grandma Bonnie said...

Where are you? I hope all is well in Judiland.