Thanksgiving Remembered

My vision of Thanksgiving dinner is being refined.

When I was a child, Thanksgiving dinner meant lots of people.  It meant playing with cousins that I only got to see a couple of times a year.  It meant Aunts and Uncles and a dozen different dishes on the table.

With my father's family, it meant a labyrinth of card tables and TV trays around the tiny living room and spilling into the adjacent bedroom.  It meant my dad and his brother taking the cousins out for a walk along the Ohio River after the big meal to work off some of the bulge in our overstuffed tummies.

With my mom's family, it meant silver and mahogany and the children's table off to the side.  It meant playing with cousins in the basement while Grandma and her daughters prepared the meal.  One year my aunt made paper Pilgrim bonnets for the girls and paper headbands with paper feathers for the boys. 

My children do not have oodles of aunts, uncles, and first cousins.  In fact, they have exactly one aunt, one uncle, and one baby cousin.  It makes me a little sad that they do not have the bombastic family gatherings that I remember.  This year we went to my parent's house, and my sister had Thanksgiving with her husband's family, so our gathering was a little smaller.

Something came up Thanksgiving Day, such that we ended up having the big dinner in shifts.  Steve, my mom, and the kids were just finishing the meal when my Grandma, Grandpa, Dad, and I started. 

I think it was a little disappointing to all of us.  Nevertheless, I was really struck that the importance of Thanksgiving Day has less to do with the traditions observed, or the format, than it does with the people loved and the blessings remembered.

Here are a few of my blessings.
I am thankful that my children have had the opportunity to know a couple of their great grandparents.  It is a rare and precious thing.
I am thankful that I had some extra time on Thursday to be with my Dad and to chat with him.
I am thankful that I have a wonderful husband who was capable and willing to spot the kids for dinner without me.
I am thankful to my mom for preparing the meal and keeping her humor through some delay and uncertainty.
I am thankful for homemade stuffing and pie.
I am thankful that we were able to all have dessert together.
I am thankful for the fun time Steve and I had playing a board game with my parents after our children were tucked in bed.
There are so many other things, even from just one day. 
Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you.