Thanksgiving

Throughout my life I've had 3 different types of Thanksgivings, each of them changing in sync with the changes in my life. My first memories of Thanksgiving take place at my Gradmother's house in Joplin, Missouri with my large family on my dad's side. My three uncles, five aunts, 14 cousins, Grandmother, Grandfather, mother, father, brother, sister, cat, and me. This arrangement stays true for christmas as well, but that is for another blog post. We (mom, dad, brother, sister, me) would drive to Missouri the evening school lets out for thanksgiving break and get there the following day, then leave 2 days before school starts, and get back the day before school. The whole family sits around a long table crammed with seats and plates and enough food to feed a whole house full of homeless people. The dogs weave between our feet, occasionally poking their heads out to beg for food as dogs normally do. On the days preceding and following Thanksgiving day the kids spend their time outside playing in the snow, at the mall, or at the playground down the street. We would play games as a family and fight as family normally does.

When I was about 6 or 7 my grandparents died within 3 months from each other. So as a little kid with no emotional connection to them, this only meant no more big family gatherings at their house, not necessarily no more grandparents. But this didnt stop the Thanksgiving celebration. We had friends living in Oklahoma that built a cabin on a 32 acre forested plot of land. Their family, about the same size as ours, would gather here for celebration, so they invited us to stay there with them for a week out of the year. The time frame was the same as before, just different people, different surroundings, different things to do. We are no longer friends with this family, so now this thanksgiving is over.

A new type of Thanksgiving has recently begun. My mom has friends from work that we have eaten with at their house for the past three years. This type of thanksgiving is not exciting, mainly due to the extreme difference in the number of people there. But it is thanksgiving none the less. It is through all of these changes that i appreciate more of what i have than i did before these changes, and this also comes with getting older. But i remain thankful for everything i have and everything i had.