Yesteday was Thanksgiving. I think of it as Paul's and my holiday, of a variety of reasons, some of which I posted several years ago (has it really been nine years? hmmm...). It had to do with my inviting him to Thanksgiving dinner, us both unintentionally standing the other up, joking the following year about having to get married to get a turkey dinner, only to have it be turkey bologna (the person whose benefit we did that for didn't buy what we were saying), then getting four turkeys the Thanksgiving after he died.
There are so many memories when it comes to holidays. But then, that goes along with life in general. Holidays, though, seem to be a condensed version of life, in that everyone who's able to gets together, rather than the occasional one-on-one.
I had originally thought of getting up at five yesterday morning, but then set the alarm for six. (Five a.m. is just too obscene a time to get up, especially to jump right into holiday cooking.) By the time I had the second set of pies in the oven (apple; the first two were pumpkin, which came after baking pumpkin bread), the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade was on. My sons and I watched/listened while they dealt with computers and I worked on the day's dinner.
M. had mentioned that it'd be great to watch the original Miracle on 34th Street right after the parade. We watch it every year, usually in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. But I had given him a copy of it last year for Christmas, and he really wanted to watch it after the parade. No problem.
Part of me had wanted to go for a walk after the parade was over. It has been part of my holiday ritual for years, not only on Thanksgiving, but also Christmas and Easter. I've made mention of the walk several times over the years: near the end of a December 2012 post, a post from this past April, dealing with an Easter walk. This second one had me a little down, as I really didn't want to see how much more of the wooded area had been destroyed. On the other hand, the subtle changes are sometimes good, and usually interesting. But then, I also wasn't sure when my daughter and granddaughter would be here. I knew when I'd told them dinner would be close to ready, but I didn't want to leave, in case they came early, and wanted to do something else, like, say going to the beach, as we did last year.
But in the end, I didn't go for a walk. I might, sometime this weekend.
M.H. and G. arrived shortly before five. Dinner still had a little ways to go (not long, but enough...) and while stuff was cooking, G. and I talked while she helped peel potatoes and M.H. worked on homework for school. (She's back in college while working, something I'd done years earlier.)
When dinner was finally ready, everyone ate too much (what else is new, right?), and we talked, and basically had an enjoyable time.
After dinner, as I started clearing the table, M.H. started doing the dishes. At first, I thought she was only going to do a few, but the next thing I knew, the only thing left was the roaster pan, which was left to soak in the sink. Everything else had been cleaned!
After my daughter and granddaughter left, I thought about the first Thanksgiving they were back in Florida. So much has changed over the years.
No matter the holiday, there are always memories for all of us, I thought, as I got out the boxes of Christmas cards to start addressing (another tradition - starting the cards on Thanksgiving evening). Hope your day was good...
