The ghosts of Thanksgivings past

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, despite the chaos. Or maybe because of it?

Hi friends,

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love the food and the people. I love making the food for the people. I love filling my house with comforting smells and the hungry bodies of those I love and telling them, with a plate full of turkey and all the fixings, “I made this for you.”

But despite that, sometimes the ghosts of Thanksgivings past whisper to me from the shadows, asking me why I bother. Why do I go to such effort to prepare a meal on one of the most stressful days of the year? Why do I fill my modest house to bursting and put up with my husband’s fretting about whether there will be enough turkey or if a child will climb onto the couch with sticky fingers? Wouldn’t it be easier, and therefore more pleasant, to accept someone’s invitation and allow them to do most of the work? And the answer to that is a definite no. 

I don’t know if it’s because I enjoy the opportunity to show off my cooking be hospitable or if it’s because Thanksgiving, of all the holidays, holds the most fond memories for me, despite it often being a very stressful day. 

I come from a large family. I’m the third of seven kids. My parents never shied away from filling our already crowded home with dinner guests on Thanksgiving. It was chaos, but it was fun, and there was always plenty of food. 

One year the day was particularly warm, and Mom wanted Dad to get all us kids out of the house. So Dad and a bunch of us went for a hike at a local park. Not just a pleasant walk on a paved path, which would have been sensible. No, we headed for a trek through the woods, a hike that culminated in descending a steep, rutted slope we kids had named “the devil’s slide.” We had a terribly good time. I think I tore a pair of jeans! Imagine my mother’s reaction when we arrived home, sweaty and covered with dirt, hours later! She was not pleased. But the food was still good!

Several years later I was a young bride eager to host my first Thanksgiving. My parents and younger siblings lived about a mile away at the time, but my husband and I decided to do our own thing and invite several of his Air Force buddies over for the big feast. I barely knew what I was doing, but I had help from my mother and our guests, and everyone had fun and ate too much. Ever since then, my favorite way to celebrate Thanksgiving has been to host it at my home and do most of the cooking myself. 

The Thanksgivings in the years that followed were most often spent the same, even with our growing family. I always insisted that we stay home and fill our house with guests for the special day, despite my husband’s worries about the amount of food (there was always enough) and whether dinner would be ready on time (it almost never was). It continued to be my favorite holiday, despite (or perhaps because of) the chaos.

Then, just before Thanksgiving in 2008, my paternal grandmother (“Grandma the Great”) passed away. The funeral was the day before Thanksgiving! All seven of us kids were in Minnesota for our beloved grandmother’s funeral, and the next day we celebrated Thanksgiving together at my parents’ house. To this day it is one of my favorite Thanksgiving memories. Grandma the Great would have loved it.

Oh, and who can forget the year that my two daughters and half of our visiting relatives ended up with one of those 24-hour stomach bugs? My mother-in-law was hosting that year. I wonder if that’s why she’s not insisted on hosting since?

There’s one other Thanksgiving that stands out in my mind, this one much more recent. On that day in 2021, while I was busy cooking dinner and spending time with my children and grandson, my brother called to tell me that Mom, who was in the hospital with Covid, was going to be moved to the ICU, where she would be intubated and sedated. It was also the day my older daughter announced that she was expecting her first baby. It was a somber, bittersweet day, and honestly I think it would have been harder if my house hadn’t been full of my favorite people.

I suppose that every Thanksgiving going forward will be a little bittersweet, a reminder of one of the most difficult times in my life so far. But it will also remind me of my mom’s hospitality, her arms open and eager to welcome people into her home, family or not. She is the example I follow every Thanksgiving, the reason I’m happy to embrace the chaos and all the love and joy (and good food) that goes with it.

To my fellow Americans, may you have a blessed and Happy Thanksgiving!

---

A poem from the November Poem-a-Day Challenge

I’ve been participating in the Poetry Pub’s Poem-a-Day challenge and combining their daily prompts with the Writer’s Digest Poem-a-Day Chapbook challenge. November 1st was a Friday, so for Poetry Pub that meant “Form Friday.” The challenge was to write a haibun, a form that combines prose and haiku, which I had never done before. For Writer’s Digest, the prompt was to write a “before you leave” poem. It happened to be my mom’s birthday, so I wrote a poem in honor of her. Here it is:

Before you leave, sit here at my dining room table. Sip your coffee slowly. Allow it to cool so you have to heat it up again. A quick trip to the microwave. But there’s no hurry. 

Before you leave, listen from across the table. Watch the sun spot travel across the hardwood floor as we chat into the afternoon. Into the night. So that it’s too late and you have to stay. Just one more day. 

I have so much I want to tell you. 

The peace rose—your favorite—
wilted before it took root. 
I haven’t replaced it. 

---

A few lovely Thanksgiving picture books:

• Sharing the Bread: An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving Story by Pat Zietlow Miller, illustrated by Jill McElmurry

• Thanksgiving in the Woods by Phyllis Alsdurf, illustrated by Jenny Løvlie.

• Otis Gives Thanks by Loren Long

---

Mouse rolling out dough, from Inktober 2021

---

For more poetry and a story about family and chaos, check out my middle grade novel in verse, Mari in the Margins. My publisher, Bandersnatch Books, is having a Holiday sale that you won’t want to miss! Black Friday through Cyber Monday all books will be 40% off.

---