Most of the fun of any holiday season involves the holiday traditions you create with family and friends. They can be classic, dorky, traditional, silly, unusual, new, out-of-the-box or even strange but they are yours. They feel like old friends. Holidays just aren’t the same without them. Even if you are The Groaner in the group, you would miss those traditions if you skipped them.
Thanksgiving isn’t exactly my favorite holiday in the line up. Twenty-one years ago on November 14th, my father unexpectedly passed away. His absence threw all our traditions into disarray: telling each one’s “thankful for” at the table, sharing the holiday dinner with our favorite family, followed by an afternoon movie for the ladies and Cowboys game at Texas Stadium for the men. My Mom and I tried to regroup. For a few years, we skipped the meal altogether, opting to deliver meals to those in need. Then we tried going out to Thanksgiving dinner, by ourselves and with invited friends. We have attended close friend’s family dinners. Still all with deep sadness in our hearts.
Finally, we decided a few years ago to invite friends who were without a place to go for Thanksgiving to our home. Instead of feeling like outsiders with our faces pressed to the glass looking in on a cozy, loving family, we created our new Thanksgiving family. We don’t always cook—this year we are picking up all but the pie—but we do open our home to anyone feeling displaced.
The morning starts in PJs, with hot tea watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Eventually, the scent of baking pies permeates our home while we add last minute touches to the table. We eat and eat and eat, then serve the much anticipated pie. (We are a pie family.) At the end of the day, when we are tired and full, we realize it hasn’t been a perfect day. But we are blessed in so many ways, we acknowledge that even if “perfect days” seem like images from those old Super 8 movies, we enjoy the new memories and holiday traditions we are making. And for that, I am truly thankful.
