I pity the English, for they have no Thanksgiving.  Not just that, but they seem to harbor some animosity towards ours.  They always conveniently “forget” that we have a Thanksgiving holiday, or act like they’ve never heard of it, and schedule all sorts of deadlines for the Friday after Thanksgiving “on accident,” if you happen to work with a bunch of them. 

As an adult, or more specifically, as a mother, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  It takes the least amount of preparation and has the biggest payoff for the work you put into it.  No costumes to make or buy, no cards to send off, no secret shopping and hiding of goods, no worry about forgetting someone.  You have to budget time and money for the meal itself, but then with leftovers, you don’t have to cook again for a long time.

When I was a really little kid, we’d have Thanksgiving in Indiana with our extended family.  We’d rent out the Girl Scout Cabin in town and everyone would start bringing things in the night before.  It was a big industrial kitchen housed in a building made of logs.  All the aunts and uncles would buzz around that kitchen, making the food that conditioned my own palate to what Thanksgiving tastes like.  There were long, rustic, bumpy wooden tables and two large fireplaces along the wall.  But, there was also plenty of room to play and dance and visit with people that we didn’t see nearly enough.

After my aunt died when I was in 7^th grade, the family lost its glue.  The Thanksgiving get-togethers stopped and it was just my immediate family.  My mother found that lonely so she started inviting over people who had nowhere else to go.  There were unmarried teachers from her school who weren’t able to make it to their parents’ houses for the holiday.  Or, free-spirited friends of my sister who normally would snub the traditional trappings of such a mainstream holiday, but succumbed to sharing the meal at our house because the thought of being alone was just too sad.  More than once, we had some odd characters that someone found somewhere and invited at the last minute.  Those dinners were always entertaining and memorable.

I prepared my first Thanksgiving dinner thirteen years ago, right after my son’s first birthday.  It was in a two-bedroom apartment we were renting outside Cleveland.  I’d earned my degree in psychology years before, I had a professional full-time job I that I loved, a happy marriage and a healthy and brilliant son, but I swear, at the moment I carried that turkey to the table, all the other accomplishments paled in comparison to the pride I felt in that damn bird. 

All of the Thanksgivings since then have been memorable in one way or another.  Meals we’ve hosted, or meals we’ve had at relatives’ houses.  In Minnesota, Texas, Massachusetts, Ohio, Arizona and in Chicago. 

My little nuclear family even had one Thanksgiving dinner in a diner somewhere off the interstate when we were making our move from Austin to Worcester. The meal was part of a buffet and the food was bad, but we enjoyed the novelty of it, since it was part of a big adventure. 

Another Thanksgiving was one that we had in Cleveland, while I was seven months pregnant with my middle child.  We took an Amtrack train from San Antonio to Chicago then from Chicago to Cleveland and it was miserable.  On the way back, the day after Thanksgiving, we planned our lay over in Chicago to last for several hours.  My parents were visiting my sister, so we met up with everyone and went to my favorite tapas restaurant, then back to my parents’ hotel room on Michigan Avenue.  The weather was so warm that year, the shoppers on The Magnificent Mile were bustling down the decorated street in t-shirts and Santa hats.  I took a nap on my mom’s bed, feeling the baby kick inside me and listening to my mother chatter quietly with my son.  It’s one of my favorite memories of all time.

When I was pregnant with my third child, I had such a hard time with morning sickness and other problems that my whole first trimester was spent crying in bed (when I wasn’t puking in the toilet).  I knew that if I could just hold out until Thanksgiving, all would be well.  The holiday conveniently fell just into my second trimester.  By the time it came, I had my appetite back and was really ready to celebrate with a giant meal made of food that tasted exactly how I wanted it to.

Last Thanksgiving, we went to my dad’s house in Arizona.  My mom died on October 28^th and we were having her memorial service the day after Thanksgiving.  I don’t remember much about the holiday itself.  Our plan was to cook all those old family recipes and reminisce about Thanksgivings past and celebrate who my mother was.  But, I think it really turned out to be more of a chore we had to work through.  I know we all remarked about how good the food was, but I don’t know if any of us really tasted it.  I spent the next day packing up my mother’s belongings for charity, since the job would have been too hard for my dad to do alone, and then we had her memorial service. 

This year, my father is coming here.  I’ve done nothing to prepare for it.  I see that the stores are all having sales on things I’ll need, but I haven’t been able to focus enough to print out my list and do the shopping.  I have detailed plans for the day before Thanksgiving and the day after, and I’ve cooked the meal enough times to do it with my eyes closed, so I’m not feeling any pressure.  But, when I see those pyramids of Thanksgiving items at the store, at first my heart speeds up with the excited anticipation of my favorite holiday nearing, and then it just feels a little hollow, so I turn my cart away and convince myself that I still have plenty of time before I have to get those things. 

I know I have to get it together and make it good.  And, maybe it will be good, just on its own.  Maybe the food and the company and the change of scenery from last year will be enough to perk it up and make it good.  I know from my own experience, I’m not just cooking a meal, I’m forming memories for my own kids, like my mother did for me.  For those memories, I am eternally thankful, which is what Thanksgiving is supposed to be about, isn’t it?