All Things in Moderation

So What Does Thanksgiving Mean in Your Life?

I LOVE Thanksgiving, and not just because I love to overeat. I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t spend Thanksgiving with my family. We (my siblings and their descendants and their descendants . . . and now their descendants) are spread around the country — OK, TX, LA, GA, NY, NJ.  Thanksgiving has become THE holiday for us. Following my mother’s death 20 years ago, it became a tradition that no matter where we all live, we all show up and spend most of the week together.  It is a very special time for us.

We all show up not because it is obligatory.  It’s just darned fun.  We draw for partners and have marathon spades and canasta tournaments lasting all night. We always have an intricate jigsaw puzzle going. We have an obscene amount of good food (we have some trained chefs). We talk and catch up. We get to play with our little ones, who live in Atlanta so some of us (that would be me) don’t see them any other time.  Some watch football downstairs while some watch movies in the media room upstairs while some read.  We usually plan an outing (this year we’re taking a train ride in honor of our 4 y/o train enthusiast).  We inevitably have a couple of arguments about current events, and trust me we run the gamut on political views every bit as much as those on this board.

We don’t all like each other, but we all value the family and the anchor it offers.  We all value the memories we are making just by living and playing together for a while.  And I am thankful for it.

SO . . . What does Thanksgiving mean to you and yours? Got an anecdote, or joke, or thoughts on its significance, or . . . ?  Let’s celebrate!

Happy Thanksgiving to all,
— okie

For me, Thanksgiving is very simply being grateful for family, but as the matriarch of the family now, it is tradition which really gives us comfort and even strength as a family.  Most families have their own peculiar traditions and believe me, because I’ve tried, you can always add a new one but whatever you do don’t try to change an old one or dispose of it like an old shoe, the kids will scream bloody murder.  One year I made a lemon meringue pie instead of my usual dutch apple, and even though it was about 8 years ago, the kids still tease me about it as if I’d committed a crime against humanity.  Apparently, lemon meringue on Thanksgiving is comparable to wearing white after Labor Day, who knew?

The one tradition we have though that means the most to me now, just as it did as a child, is sitting around the table during and after dinner, before the card games begin, and sharing memories of times gone by or of people we’ve lost.  As a child I learned so much history, both family and otherwise, listening to my grandparents and great aunts and uncles reminisce about settling in Los Angeles in the early 1900’s.  My father’s WWII escapades and mother’s family migration from OK to CA during the depression were fascinating to me as both a child and an adult.  Now I am the keeper of family history and so I’m looking forward again this year to sharing those old family stories, which for our kids includes all of our stories from the 60’s, their fascination with their own “birth days”, their father’s family’s migration from Poland, etc. etc.  I can’t wait.  And the dutch apple pie recipe is from my grandmother’s cookbook, the one I remember looking through as a kid about 50 years ago, which sits on our bookshelf today..

I’d also like to mention how grateful I am for my wonderful husband of over 33 years.  We’ve made a great team through thick and thin and I can’t imagine living a life without him, or the kids of course, but he came first.

Happy Thanksgiving all,

— lmsinca (lulu)

Thanksgivings for me have always been a mixed bag of family and friends.  Growing up, my memories are of family around the table and pretty much your Norman Rockwell painting. . . but now that I’m an adult I know that there was a lot more going on behind the scenes that I didn’t know about.  My Uncle Ted–my Dad’s older brother–was an alcoholic.  I was always afraid of Ted growing up, but I didn’t know why until I was a freshman in college and he ended up in the ICU because he almost died from an esophogeal bleed due to his drinking; he and I became pen pals, and I like to think that I may have been part of his road to sobriety at that point. . . he struggled with his alcoholism to the very end (he died of cancer on July 2, 2010), but his last years were his best and he re-connected with my cousins, my Aunt, and his friends in ways he was profoundly grateful for–and he was a rock of stability to me when I found out that my (now ex) husband had become an alcoholic.

As adults, Brian’s and my Thanksgivings were mostly about connecting with friends.  His family lives in CA and mine in MI; we met in NC, married while I was in AL and he was in CA, lived our early married life in WA and then ended up in UT. . . nomadic, to say the least.  Over the years we’ve stayed friends with a few people from our pre-marriage days, made more friends here and there as we navigated the waters between dating and marriage, and then settled down here.  I love cooking the Thanksgiving feast, from turkey to side dishes to Julia Child’s delectable  pumpkin pie recipe, so we usually had a mixture of family who could travel to see us and in-town friends over for the Big Day.  Our last Thanksgiving like that was in 2007.

Since then, I haven’t been able to plan a Thanksgiving like we used to have, because I never knew if he’d be able to pull it off or not.  But, you know what?  I’m so grateful this Thanksgiving that it has erased any bad thoughts that I have about the holiday.

Many of you are part of that–many of you have followed my travails this year both on PL and here with support, comfort, and understanding that transcends what I would have expected.  I never, never imagined that I would count on people like you–that I’ve never even seen in person–to provide support and  love in such a way as you have.  I’ve also found out that Ted’s side of the family–my Aunt Nan and cousins Linda, Laurie and Sarah (or, as they prefer, Marcia, Jan and Cindy) along with their close friends Keddy and Carlee–love and care for me beyond belief, and I’m profoundly grateful for the sisterhood that we’ve formed.  And, finally, I’ve found out that my co-workers, who have watched this whole thing unfold while I’ve been working with them, are more than co-workers and are, actually, deeply cherished friends.

So this Thanksgiving is going to be one of the best ever.  I’m spending it with Nan and my cousin Linda (and her four daughters, who are planning to do a major makeover on me to get me ready for the dating market–I don’t know whether to be excited or scared silly!) in CA, then the week between Christmas and New Year’s I’m going to MI to get together with the rest of the family.  I thank you all for your patience and understanding as this year has unfolded.  This is a wonderful holiday and a wonderful time.  I hope that you all have a Thanksgiving that will go down in your memories as the best ever.

Cheers!
— Michigoose

Holidays are often spotty. Birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc., can come with expectations that often make the holidays a little disappointing.

So, I try to keep my expectations managed, and if it turns out all right . . . then, great! If it doesn’t, I’m not overly disappointed. I frequently see the effects of expecting too much magic over the holidays, and it’s rarely pretty, so I try to keep very level expectations.

If nobody gets shot and nothing gets burned to the ground, then it’s a good Thanksgiving. The best Thanksgivings I’ve ever had have been away from family (once, just my wife an I in Gatlinburg, well before The Children™, and then a few years ago, again in Gatlinburg, and with very modest expectations, many serendipitous events led to it being an awesome Thanksgiving . . . and remembering not to expect that every year has kept subsequent Thanksgivings from being major disappointments, by comparison.

That having been said, here’s Christina Ricci in Addam’s Family Values” sharing Wednesday Addam’s take on Thanksgiving:

As far as being thankful, that’s a daily event for me. I was born in a wonderful country, at a wonderful time, and live a life where, in a population of seven billion people, I’m in the 1%. And a great deal of that (for me personally) is an accident of birth, and I am grateful. My parents are still alive, my children are healthy and as well-adjusted as I could ever hope any children of mine to be, my wife an I are a little old and rickety for 42, but we enjoy much more robust health than we could. I can think of a thousand events in my life that I am grateful for, and my prayers at night are mostly thanking God for that. Thanksgiving will be no difference, except with more tTurkey.

It’s a good practice. When work is hard, when things break, when I’m stuck with unexpected expenses and get cheated by a contractor and have to spend time I’d rather spend relaxing laboring in the yard just to keep the backyard from turning into a sink-hole . . . I remember how lucky I am to live a life full of first world problems. I’ll do it tonight, I’ll do it tomorrow night, and so on and so forth, to Thanksgiving and beyond.

— Kevin

Thanksgiving has always been one of the two great annual holidays in my family.  The other is Passover.  TG has usually been  #1, however.  Passover is often mid-week and now is often during tax season and I am married to a tax specialist CPA.  I am often a tax widower at Passover.

TG is now marked by a pilgrimage of family and friends to my home, or to my sis in NC, or to my daughter in Santa Fe.  But for the first ten years of my life, the extended family came to our farm for TG.  It was always about picking wild asparagus.  It was always about sifting cranberries from my grandfather’s bog.  It was always about the adults having stories to tell that had waited a whole year to be told.   I remember Korea when two uncles and my eldest cousin came in uniform, and the thankfulness was about them.

That last TG on the farm my Uncle Lou asked my little sis if she wanted another breast and she answered “two’s enough for any girl”.  She was five, then, and we used to act out Ernie Kovacs scripts for the adults.   She thought EK was funny when she was three.  She introduces us today as brother and sister by reminding anyone who will listen that she is the smart one and I am the pretty one.  But we knew she was the smart, pretty, funny, musical, athletic one even then.  I tell that story about her in 1953 every single year.  I will tell it Thursday in Santa Fe.

— Mark

Thanksgiving has become for me the quintessential American holiday. More than any other, it reminds me that I am an American. This is because from 1992 thru 2005 I celebrated 14 straight Thanksgivings overseas, in places where few others were celebrating along. It took a real and conscious effort to maintain some semblance of the traditions that we took for granted back home, not least because more often than not, the families that were a part of those traditions were seldom present. We, my wife and I, had to do it all ourselves. And we had to instill in our kids, each of whom was born outside the US, some sense of what Thanksgiving means without any of the trappings of the wider culture. No school plays about pilgrims, no day off from school or work, no decorations at the stores, no parades on TV. In England it was difficult to even get a turkey, because there turkey is the traditional meal of Christmas, so the stores wouldn’t be stocked for another month. And no football games. No football games! I don’t know how I survived. Thanksgiving was the one day of the year, more than any other, that made me miss America.

When I was growing up, Thanksgiving celebrations alternated every other year at our house and my uncle’s house. Both houses had a pool table, and every year before dinner all the kids would gather in the basement with my dad, my uncle, and my grandfather to play pool for nickels and dimes. So when I was living in Hong Kong, in a tiny 2 bedroom flat (in HK you have to say “flat”), my wife went out and bought me one of those miniature sized pool tables, the size of a card table, so that I could have my game of pool on Thanksgiving. When I moved to England, I bought a house that had a snooker table in it, so for 7 years snooker became the game of choice on Thanksgiving day. (Pool is much, much better, believe me.)

And of course football. You can’t have Thanksgiving without football. So each year while dinner was being prepared I would put in a video tape of an old football game, the famous Doug Flutie Hail Mary game when Boston College beat Miami on a last second 60 yard touchdown pass. Granted, it was college not pro, and I already knew the (glorious) outcome, but certain concessions had to be made to the harsh realities of Hong Kong life. By the time I moved to England, Sky TV had been created by Rupert Murdoch, and midway through my time there Sky Sports actually started showing American football. Live. I don’t care what nasty things Bernie L. has to say about him, no man who brought me live football on Thanksgiving in the UK can be all bad.

Over those years away we celebrated Thanksgiving with lots of different people. We introduced this wonderful holiday to Brits, Kiwis, Australians, and even a Thai one year. I remember one year in the UK doing Thanksgiving with another American family that briefly moved into our neighborhood. Today I couldn’t even tell you their names, but that day they were our family. This week will mark my 6th Thanksgiving back on American soil. I finally have a real pool table in the basement, where we will spend much of the afternoon playing pool and watching football. After dinner we will all go for the traditional walk around the neighborhood to prepare our stomachs for dessert. And I will say a silent thank you for the one thing I am most thankful for on Thanksgiving day…being an American.

– ScottC




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My immediate family is not prone to gatherings and togetherness, at least in regards to each other.  And the last time I invited others over to share our Thanksgiving table, MrJS growled.  So today it’s just the two of us and the caregiver du jour.


Tomorrow, however, is the 3rd annual Black Friday Fajitafest.  Various friends and relations will roll by, enjoy the fajita buffet, share their Thanksgiving experiences, and maybe partake in a craftsy project to make small gifts for hospice patients.  One of my nieces has a mid-November b-day, so we’ll celebrate that. too.  


It’s a sort of open house arrangement, so I never know how many will show.  It seems to be directly related to how much guacamole is available, so this year I have lots of avocados.  


-MsJS


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For some reason, when I think of Thanksgiving, I don’t think of meals with my parents or mother-in-law or with my own family, but of the Thanksgivings my husband’s family had when he was growing up. It was his mother’s favorite holiday. She had no family of her own, and she would drive with her husband and children from Chicago to central Indiana and her husband’s family. When they crossed the Wabash, the returning driver would always sing “Back Home in Indiana” and everyone wanted to be the first person to spot the sign that said, “Eat here and get gas.” Sometimes it snowed. One year, my mother-in-law forgot her suitcase and arrived for the long weekend with only the clothes on her back. All the cousins played basketball for hours on end–it was Indiana afterall–and the adults played poker long into the night. There was lots of food. Everybody laughed.

This year my husband and I are having a quiet Thanksgiving. My daughter and her family are at her in-laws, my son and his wife sticking close to home and eating with friends since son #3 is due on the 5th. Yesterday, the sixth and last of the Sky Spinner books arrived from the printer, which means I actually made it through that whole mountain range. Earlier, when we stuffed the turkey it was with the same sherry bread dressing I made for the first time the Thanksgiving before we were married. The house smells like Thanksgiving. I am grateful. I am happy.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

– AllButCertain/ABC/Emily

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