Growing up, Thanksgiving was always a big deal. It was a time for family to get together and to be together. We loved it. Of course there was all kinds of food. Grandma would cook the turkey and the dressing and the pie. I’m sure there were other dishes but I so remember the pie. Grandma could cook the best chocolate pie that I have ever tasted.
Once I was married it became a marathon of food. We went to my family’s for dinner. We went to the in-laws and then the family meals as well. For an entire weekend we were busy traveling from one meal to another. And it was like that until the families started getting smaller because Grandma died, Daddy died, others moved on. It just wasn’t the same. My most memorable Thanksgiving I wasn’t even there. I was in high school and was away from home at a tournament for the weekend. My family hosted and Mom brought the ping pong table up from the basement into the living room. My sister had taken over a lot of the cooking chores, including the pie. She made pecan pie. I heard that Daddy said that he was going to eat a piece of that pecan pie, even if it killed him. He was diabetic. The next day he was in the hospital. I think I’ll always remember that story. And I guess it made such an impact on me because I wasn’t there.
So fast forward so many years. Both of my parents died, I divorced, and brought both of my children to western Kentucky. Four years later I moved to Fancy Farm. Thanksgiving in Fancy Farm is all about faith and family. But I learned early on in this household that Thanksgiving is just another day. Everyone will tell you that. Yes, we get together, still, for dinner. But it is usually not on Thanksgiving Day. Most of our family takes Thanksgiving day and spends it with other families. We have always just had a dinner here with our immediate family. There have been no demands put on anyone to join us, but if you’d like to, you’re welcome.
So when my older kids moved out of town, I never required them to come home for Thanksgiving. They could, but if they had somewhere else to go, that was okay too. If anyone in the family didn’t have a place to go for dinner, they were invited. But that didn’t happen very often. So through the years it turned out that it was just my family for dinner. Jimmy would smoke the turkey and I would make all of the trimmings, including the pie. Not pecan pie, just pumpkin, and this year apple. But we would eat dinner and then watch old movies on TV. And Jimmy would go back to work.
You see, Thanksgiving is in the heart of tobacco stripping season. So there’s always activity going on in the stripping room. And my dear sweet husband will tell you that Thanksgiving is just another day. So we have dinner and he goes back to work.
We do manage to go to Mass first thing. And for the last few years you had better get there early or you won’t get a seat. Mass is such a wonderful way to give thanks and really sets the mood off.
But I am still thinking that Thanksgiving is just another day. Instead of looking at it that the kids aren’t home and Jimmy’s working, I look at it as another day of thanks-giving. Because we should all strive to give thanks each and every day. Not that every day is great but we all have so much to be thankful for.