Thanksgiving as My Favorite Holiday

The other day, my status on Facebook read, “Just like my mom, Thanksgiving has become my favorite holiday, must be a grown up thing.” Someone responded by posting, “It's my favorite holiday too! ... it's all about when you're old enough to realize that the time with family is the real gift.”

After reading that, I realized Thanksgiving means something different for me. Yes, there’s the obvious, no gifts, just food, thankfulness, and family. Several years ago I made an executive decision for my then newly growing family that we would only travel for Thanksgiving or Christmas. It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made for my family. Although I prefer not to travel on the busiest day of the year (the day before Thanksgiving) I welcome family and friends to come eat with us any year.

In my family, Thanksgiving was traditionally “my mom’s holiday”. Although it was almost always spent with her after my parents were divorced it wasn’t rich in tradition, other than the foods. The year after my mom died (the second Thanksgiving without her), I invited my dad, brother, sister and niece to come celebrate with us. To my surprise my dad took me up on the offer, only I didn’t find this out until the morning he arrived. It was an unprecedented Thanksgiving and although it was wonderfully picturesque I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was a once in a family experience.

Thanksgiving is easily my favorite holiday because of the traditions I have created or those that have spontaneously developed with my own, small family of four. Early Thanksgiving morning I put the turkey in the oven and all, or some of us (on the rare occasion we have family visiting) spend a few mere hours delivering meals for our Community Thanksgiving to those who are homebound, and sometimes alone for the holiday. We have been doing this since my kids were young and I absolutely love this part of the day. This year we’ve added a twist. As my daughter’s first year as a girl scout (Daisy) we collected donations as part of her cookie sales (and added a few ourselves) so that we can give each family we deliver a meal to a box of girl scout cookies as well.

After delivering we enjoy our own Thanksgiving meal at home. I’m on the side that Thanksgiving dinner should be served at dinner time but we end up eating between 1:00 – 3:00 regardless. Our centerpiece is a branch we have newly collected and each year we add a paper leaf with our name, the year, and what we are thankful for to hang from our tree of thanks.

For the past several years we have enjoyed a hike up the bluff after eating and last year we went to see The Muppet Movie. There may be another movie this year, but one thing I’m sure of is that between my husband and football-crazed 8 ½ year old there will be football on our TV.

And those are just our traditions for Thanksgiving day, they continue onto the next day as well, and no they do not include shopping.

This year I’m even thinking of serving Snoopy’s Thanksgiving feast of buttered toast and popcorn sometime during the day.

However you are celebrating and whatever your traditions are I wish you a wonderful, relaxing and thankful Thanksgiving holiday. May the servings of bickering, guilt, and regret be small.