Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving officially continues to be my favorite holiday. Boy Howdy-I love Thanksgiving.
If Norman Rockwell were Jewish, he would have drawn my family's Thanksgiving dinner when I was growing up. It was pretty perfect. There were about fourteen of us sitting around, feasting on the amazing meal my Mom and my Grandma took all day to prepare. We ate late in my family. The meal started around 6:30. And those ladies were in the kitchen from the second I woke up until we started eating. Now that I'm cooking, I have no earthly idea what they were doing all that time. But, it was worth it.
After dinner my brother and I would usually start the entertainment portion of the evening. He would play some goofy song on the piano that everyone would sing along to. And I would do some kind of monologue, usually the one where you put your hands on either side of your face and push your cheeks in saying, "Hi, I'm Chubby." Every year it would make my grandpa laugh so hard he would cry. There was nothing better than that. My cousin, my mom, or my aunt would sometimes sing a song, my grandpa would tell stories, and we would stuff our faces with dessert. Those were wondrous times.
Then Thanksgiving hit the skids a little bit. My brother married an amazing woman with an amazing family, but everyone has a different idea of what Thanksgiving should be. When their union was official, so was the end of my tranquil Rockwellian Thanksgivings. Now it became an every-man-for-himself kind of hugely crowded holiday, where Russ and I had to sit at a card table, BY OURSELVES, for our first Thanksgiving together. It was not my idea of my favorite holiday. And it was no one's fault. It's just that there aren't a lot of graceful ways to celebrate with 27 people in a room meant for ten. This went on for several years.
Well, last year we took the reins back. See, Thanksgiving was always Russ' favorite holiday, too. So we decided to start our own tradition. Last year was the first year we had the feast at our house. This was year number two. And, although I miss being with my entire family on that day, it has absolutely become, once again, the holiday I look forward to all year.
Russ and I have decided that Thanksgiving is OUR holiday-the one time we get to make the decisions and dictate the meal, the mood, and the fun. It took some selfishness and some struggle, but we did it. And man, the food tastes twice as good when you've made it on your own terms. Don't get me wrong, we still do ALL the other holidays the way everyone else wants us to. But, we enjoy them all a hell of a lot more now, knowing we have Thanksgiving.
And we are thankful.
If Norman Rockwell were Jewish, he would have drawn my family's Thanksgiving dinner when I was growing up. It was pretty perfect. There were about fourteen of us sitting around, feasting on the amazing meal my Mom and my Grandma took all day to prepare. We ate late in my family. The meal started around 6:30. And those ladies were in the kitchen from the second I woke up until we started eating. Now that I'm cooking, I have no earthly idea what they were doing all that time. But, it was worth it.
After dinner my brother and I would usually start the entertainment portion of the evening. He would play some goofy song on the piano that everyone would sing along to. And I would do some kind of monologue, usually the one where you put your hands on either side of your face and push your cheeks in saying, "Hi, I'm Chubby." Every year it would make my grandpa laugh so hard he would cry. There was nothing better than that. My cousin, my mom, or my aunt would sometimes sing a song, my grandpa would tell stories, and we would stuff our faces with dessert. Those were wondrous times.
Then Thanksgiving hit the skids a little bit. My brother married an amazing woman with an amazing family, but everyone has a different idea of what Thanksgiving should be. When their union was official, so was the end of my tranquil Rockwellian Thanksgivings. Now it became an every-man-for-himself kind of hugely crowded holiday, where Russ and I had to sit at a card table, BY OURSELVES, for our first Thanksgiving together. It was not my idea of my favorite holiday. And it was no one's fault. It's just that there aren't a lot of graceful ways to celebrate with 27 people in a room meant for ten. This went on for several years.
Well, last year we took the reins back. See, Thanksgiving was always Russ' favorite holiday, too. So we decided to start our own tradition. Last year was the first year we had the feast at our house. This was year number two. And, although I miss being with my entire family on that day, it has absolutely become, once again, the holiday I look forward to all year.
Russ and I have decided that Thanksgiving is OUR holiday-the one time we get to make the decisions and dictate the meal, the mood, and the fun. It took some selfishness and some struggle, but we did it. And man, the food tastes twice as good when you've made it on your own terms. Don't get me wrong, we still do ALL the other holidays the way everyone else wants us to. But, we enjoy them all a hell of a lot more now, knowing we have Thanksgiving.
And we are thankful.
posted by Lisa at 11:51 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home