I’m just popping in to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, since I’ll be away from this blog until after the holiday. I consider Thanksgiving the most important holiday I celebrate. It’s one that anyone of any background can enjoy, and a chance to simply appreciate and share the many blessings we’ve been given. My husband and I will spend it this year with my dad and my sister, whom I don’t see nearly as often as I should. This year my brother-in-law is roasting the bird.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING and many BLESSINGS to you and yours
Today I’m doing some advance food preparation and already sprayed myself with water by accident, so I had to change my shirt. Hopefully that will be the only kitchen casualty this year. I’m making the wild rice dressing, which is one of my husband’s family traditions. I love how our menus and ways of celebrating transform through marriage, friendship and osmosis.
My maternal grandmother was a terrific cook who had her own restaurant for many years. She didn’t stuff turkeys to roast them. She said stuffing makes turkey dry. I didn’t understand the sense in that, when I was young, so I stubbornly went my own way and did the stuffing thing, until I realized I had to overcook the turkey to get the stuffing to a safe temperature. So now I do it Grandma’s way; when I roast the holiday turkey I make the dressing separately. This years-long lesson taught me that certain traditions make sense to keep in place. But sometimes it takes experience and experimentation for us to realize their true value, or to decide they no longer apply. There’s value in experiment, change and tradition.
I also don’t think it’s as important that we spend this holiday with others, or which others we spend it with, as it is that we spend it realizing how blessed we really are. One of my most memorable Thanksgivings was when I was twenty or so and my family all went off camping for the long holiday weekend, but I couldn’t go because I had to work. I was too shy to impose myself on friends, so I spent the holiday alone at my parents’ house, passing most of the daylight hours out in the yard, with only the dogs for company. There was no special meal. I simply enjoyed the beauty of the day. I suspect my memory of it is better than it felt at the time, but I believe no matter where we are or who we’re with, this day can carry deep significance.
Thank you for the pretty clouds.