I realize that this article isn’t going to apply to everyone. After all, not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving. Other countries, like Canada, do. The holiday might be in a different month, but it’s still their Thanksgiving.
Do you have any memories of Thanksgiving dinners when you were growing up? They can be good or bad, but let’s hope they’re great!
I remember getting up for the day, hurrying up to finish breakfast, and watching the Santa Claus parade on TV. Through most of the parade, my mother would be in the kitchen preparing Thanksgiving dinner. I have to pause here and tell you that at this time me, my brothers, and my sisters were all way too young to help with the cooking or anything else!
Some of our Thanksgiving dinners were lean, but we also had some years where my parents were able to provide the traditional feast of turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, vegetables and pumpkin pie. As I said, when we were elementary school aged, mom made the dinner herself. As we got older, things changed.
My mother announced to us that it wasn’t up to her and her alone to make the complete dinner. This was fair. Mom wasn’t able to visit with anyone or truly get to enjoy the holiday. So, since we were all older or married with children, she announced that everyone would bring something different and that she would provide the meat. We asked her what we were supposed to bring. She assigned a different thing to everyone. This worked out great. It really did!
We had many memorable Thanksgivings with everyone providing something different, but there is one that stands out in my memory.
One of my sisters had just gotten married. Her and her new husband met a couple on their honeymoon and became good friends with them. Well, after a few years the couple wanted to experience a ‘country’ Thanksgiving. They wanted to come to our house. There were eight in my family. This didn’t count the husbands, wives, or grandchildren. With my sister and brother-in-law’s friends, we were close to thirty people there! Since there were so many of us, our visitors thought they were going to have a “Walton’s-type Thanksgiving.”
We put the grandchildren at a card table we dubbed “the kid’s table.” Isn’t there always one of them at a family gathering? We had a couple of tables for the adults since we had to have room for the food plus us.
Dad said grace before we passed the dishes around so we could serve ourselves. One of my sisters took on the responsibility of making sure that the grandchildren were served at the kid’s table.
Our visitors had a ball. They told us how Thanksgivings were at their houses when they were growing up. They were far different from ours since both were either from very small families or were an only child.
I can’t imagine that. Being the oldest of six children, I always had a gang of people with me. We were a party in all by ourselves. Growing up, I always had someone to fight with, get in trouble with, or to get in trouble! You miss this as you get older. Maybe that’s why I’m in such a nostalgic mood and am telling you about this.
Back to the dinner. Well, we were all slowly finishing up eating. Really some of us were completely stuffed! One of our visitors asked for another piece of turkey. Yes, there was a little left!
The turkey platter was by yours truly. Was I polite and picked up the turkey platter and pass it down. NOT! I just picked up a turkey leg and handed it to the person sitting next to me! Down the table the turkey leg traveled, from one person to the next. It finally reached our visitor’s place. He was grinning from ear-to-ear. He never experienced that … ever. The wife thought it was the greatest thing ever and pronounced it just like the Walton’s!
After dinner was probably like after Thanksgiving dinner in your house. My father, brothers-in-law, and the grandchildren went into the living room. We, of the female species, were on clean-up duty.
I do hope that all of you are able to create more precious memories of your own this Thanksgiving. Be it goofy like this special memory or sentimental. It really doesn’t matter just so you make them. So, from me to all of you …
HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!
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