Just Before Thanksgiving

The Holidays are upon us!  How grateful we are to be here and to look forward to welcoming family on Thanksgiving day!  Our family is large, and there are other families involved, so we will not have all of our children and grandchildren here.  Today, Lee and I put two leafs in the dining room table and it is now ready to seat fourteen.  I know for sure that there will be twelve of us seated at that table, and there is a possibility that as many as five more will show, bringing the total to seventeen!  We can, as we have done many times spill over into another area, or close the space tighter and add more chairs! 

There was once a time when having seventeen or more would always involve three tables.  One in the dining area, one in the breakfast area, and one in the sunroom.  This year I was thinking that would be the seating again, until grandaughter, Lillie, visited me a week ago.  She asked if I would be seating everyone at a long table this year like I do on Christmas Eve.  I realized that she had outgrown the "kids Korner" seating, and was in a casual way letting me know how much she enjoyed being seated with the entire group.

It has been the custom in our family (begun by daughter, Julia) to review the true story of the pilgrams in the 1600's.  Julia will remind Greg to read the descriptions of the harsh winter, the starvation that followed and the many hardships our forefathers endured.  We will try once again to grasp how difficult it must have been, even though it is hard to understand in view of our own wealth of comfortable housing, abundant food and the life we have in this modern digital age.  We do need to remember that we have these things because our forefathers and their families were courageous enough to come to a new land where they could be free.  Lee will lead in the grateful blessing, and we will include a silent thankfullness from our hearts for him as we listen to his prayer.

So, this Thanksgiving, thanks to Lillie, we will all be at the same table.  That is a good thing too.  We will enjoy the food that has been prepared and served by all participating. Everyone will be able to contribute in some way as we gather around the long table. Someone always has an announcement to make or a memory to commemorate.  We will remember those whose absence will remind us of another time when our table was filled with their family.  We will eat too much turkey, sweet potato koogle, vegetables, cranberry salad, and of course will top it off with either apple pie, pecan pie, or pumpkin pie.  By the end of the meal we will all be miserable!  The teens will go to the downstairs to play a game of pool or weather permitting, will enjoy being outside. Greg, Cathy and Julia will take their usual afternoon stroll around the drive, and the rest of us will suffer from our vantage point of the recliner, sofa or too comfortable chair.  The guys will tune in to the football game, and as soon as we can, Donna, Julia, Cathy and I will tackle the mountain of dishes, etc....

Until next blog..................Happy Thanksgiving and Blessings to you all..............

More Later...........................Brenda...