It is hard to believe that Thanksgiving is next week and then Christmas. Lord the older I get the faster times goes by.
Growing up, Thanksgiving was one of my favorite holidays. It was all about family, food and fun and you were not expected to bring a gift. Being the one family member who did not cook I always got to bring sodas or paper plates. Which worked well for me.
When I was younger we would go to East Texas for Thanksgiving and any other time off we had from school. But once Debra came along and mom started working we no longer went up to East Texas and we had all the holidays at home.
I loved waking up on Thanksgiving morning because my mom was already cooking in the kitchen. You could smell everything already and it was great. We were early eaters having dinner around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Everyone would come over and the eating would begin. I remember that we always had turkey and ham, cornbread stuffing (daddy's), bread stuffing (mom's), mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green beans that were fresh and cooked the good ole southern way; too death with bacon and onion, corn, bread of some sort and several pies. Since we had more family than table space my daddy always put up a card table and turned the coffee table into the kids table. Those of us seeking a little peace with our meals went outside and sat on the trampoline.
As the boys (Joshua, Eric & Casey) got a little bigger we started taking them to the parade in Downtown Houston. They loved it, we all did. We would sit on the sidewalk with hot chocolate, donuts and the newspaper. The kids played together and the adults read the paper and just relaxed. Once the parade started it was just pure excitement. The boys love it. That is the part of Thanksgiving I miss not having the boys around. Of course the boys are now men but in my heart they will always be 9, 8, 7.
Once I left Texas the holidays were not the same. I miss my family terribly during the holidays, once Josh left I stopped celebrating them all together. Last year was my first Thanksgiving completely void of family. Josh was in Wyoming, I was single and my family was in Texas. Phyllis and I had our own holiday dinner and it was great. We are doing the same this year just adding a few more people. We will have all the traditional things, Turkey, mashed potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, corn, green beans, stuffing (we buy it from Cracker Barrel cause we can not figure out how to make it) and pumpkin pie. Tau and Kali will have their own Thanksgiving dinner of turkey and sweet potatoes. These are their favorites. Now I just have to fight everyone else at the grocery store this weekend to get ready for Thursday. Wish me luck.