Thanksgiving 2017

As a kid, all holidays were exciting. As an adult, I can take them or leave them depending on the holiday because, as I've learned through my growing years, holidays are way more stressful when you are an adult and the one in charge. Yep, once again I see my mother differently. The change for me is how to work it so that I'm not her when it comes to reacting to the stress.

Thanksgiving isn't one of my top five holidays. Like Halloween, the history of the holiday is odd. I mean, we are celebrating our ancestors stealing the land and livelihood of someone else and then to save face they, and here come the air quotes, "invited them to a feast". Nice of them, huh? Of course, it wasn't proclaimed as such, given instead as a day to to praise and thank the Lord for all of his blessings, but for me each day is a day to be thankful.

Tradition is to have turkey, and while I eat turkey, it isn't one of my favorite. Wasn't beef more prevalent back then? By the third day of eating turkey, and usually by then it is the gross looking dark meat, I'm over it. I don't know how to cook turkey, and frankly, I don't care to learn. I'm more a "if I can buy it already cooked why wouldn't I" gal. I've cooked poultry once in my life because in my grocery I can buy a fully cooked rotisserie chicken cheaper than I can a raw one. I'm all about convenience and it tastes way better. Each year people devise creative ways to dress and cook their turkeys, and believe me, I've had it brined, deep fried, herbed, and smeared in butter and I find that turkey tastes the same no matter which way it is prepared.

What I like about the holidays are the traditions. I like doing the same thing every year, and so I embrace that when it comes to Thanksgiving. The problem with that, however, is that life gets in the way of tradition, and eventually I've had to make tweaks or to start a brand new tradition just to have it thrown out the window as life, well, changes. The one thing I know I can count on is that the Detroit Lions will play football on Thanksgiving day. Other than that, it's all up for grabs.

Our Thanksgiving when I was young started at the farm. My grandmother, and later my aunt, cooked the turkey. The females worked in the kitchen. The males hunted and then watched football. The kids played. As the kids grew, they moved into their roles determined by sex, but luckily for me the kitchen was always too crowded so I got to watch football and take care of the youngsters. When clean up duty came, my mother and I would have to bow out because our tradition was to get back in the car and drive to her relatives for another Thanksgiving meal.

An hour down the road we would stop at the house that she use to rent from a lovely couple when she was teaching. I was expected to sit, answer questions politely, and not ask when we were leaving. From there, we drove another hour to my Aunt Helen's farm where my cousin and her family would be and we ate all over again with our traditional milk gravy and persimmon pudding.

I loved it all. But life intervened, and I moved, and as the years went by I realized that keeping traditions are only kept if the adults in charge are willing to continue it, and eventually the adults in charge die, and if there is no one willing to step in then the tradition ends. Having kids, makes adults want to start their own traditions, and I've been guilty of that too, and so my next Thanksgiving traditions included eating fruit salad with my group of adopted grandparents, then having dinner with my in-laws, and finally having it at my own home with my friend or my husband cooking the turkey.

This year, as I write about this, and dread the preparation, the mess, and the heat, missing my eldest daughter who chose to stay behind in North Carolina and saddened by a friendship going through hard times, I remind myself it is one day. I tell myself that I am so very thankful for so much, and I embrace the friends who will share our meal. I will pray that we remain healthy for the next year and for the turkey to be demolished in one meal. I will love the family that I can touch and Facetime the ones that I can't, and take time out to remember the old traditions and the family who use to be a part of it all. And a part of me, will sneak away to relive that child inside of me, and I will read a book and watch some football.

Happy Thanksgiving.