It’s just turning 6 am on Thanksgiving morning.  It’s a windy and chilly day as it seems to be every year on Thanksgiving and I love it.  This just happens to be the one holiday that means more to me than any of the others.  Many holidays are religious and since I’m not a religious person they mean very little to me.  My best memories of my family are those from the many Thanksgivings we spent together.  There is no anticipation of gifts and the many negatives associated with that mind set.  It’s just a peaceful family gathering to share a meal and to be thankful for the good things in our lives.

I’m lying in bed with my better-half who’s sawing some serious logs next to me.  My cat just jumped up on the bed to demand his Thanksgiving breakfast, and the coffee pot just came alive and is beeping to let me know it’s time to get up.  This morning is  going to be just about me and that big, fat, twenty pound bird awaiting me in the kitchen.  I began thawing  him out two days ago and yesterday I began some of the prep work for his debut today.  Tradition means so much to me and I love preparing the bird.

As a youngster I spent all of my Thanksgivings with my immediate family at my grandmother’s home. She was an old school cook whose Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners were the things of legend, just incredible.  She was responsible for my undying love of cranberry sauce (the jelly kind) and the stuffing and gravy she was famous for.  I begged her for years for her gravy recipe but she’d just smile and say “maybe when your a little older”.  She went to her grave with the secret and I’ve spent years still trying to get it  just right.  Man do I miss her at this time of the year.

As a young man I married and moved away from my home area in Pittsburgh to Massachusetts and lived twenty minutes from Plymouth Plantation.  I visited Plymouth every year and attended as many of the local celebrations as possible.  I ate Thanksgiving dinner at the Plantation, was on and off the Mayflower many times, and really developed a love for the area.  We even visited many of the Wampanoag  Indian ceremonies that we were introduced to us by a friend who was a member of the tribe.  It was a terrific tradition we’d developed but as in all things change was inevitable.

Divorce required me to find a new residence.  I bought a small cottage near the ocean in Kingston, Massachusetts only 5 minutes from downtown Plymouth.  I lived there for three years and submerged myself in the history of the Pilgrims, the Indians, and everything Thanksgiving.  Again changes had to be made when my company bankrupted and I moved to Maine.  For the next seven years I celebrated a rather lonely Thanksgiving tradition.  I returned home to Pittsburgh once or twice during that time but for the most part it was just me, my cat and two ferrets. I maintained my own tradition with a large turkey breast, stuffing and all the trimmings and made the most of my crappy situation. The memories of all my past Thanksgiving’s helped tremendously but once again change was in the air. It arrived unexpectedly in the person of my better-half.

After a few years of adjusting to one another we’ve finally settled into a rather happy life and the holiday traditions had to change once more. We both maintain certain of our own family Thanksgiving traditions and are now creating a few of our own.  This year we’re welcoming our new grandson to the table for the very first time.  He was just a pooping and crying ball of flesh last Thanksgiving but now he’s grown into a walking and almost talking little person about to be officially seated at the holiday table.  I hope in the years to come the memories of his grandmother will mean as much to him as mine do to me.

I also hope that your Thanksgiving will be even better than what you expected.  The best thing about traditions is their flexibility.  No matter how much change we’re forced to deal with, both good and bad, the traditions carry on regardless.  The thoughts of years past and loved ones who are no longer with us  are the real traditions and they can never be taken away.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING