It’s Monday evening and I finished all my grocery shopping for Thanksgiving this afternoon. Tomorrow I’ll prepare the Braunschweiger Paté and Roquefort Cheese Ball for Thursday. Wednesday, I’ll brine the turkey and make all the desserts. Thanksgiving morning, I’ll be up at 5:00 am, prepping the turkey, side dishes and putting the finishing touches on the day’s festivities. All the groceries are put away and I’m relaxing with a glass of white wine, some of THAT cheese and a few crackers.
Someone asked me earlier this week here on my blog, if I’d be willing to share my favorite Thanksgiving traditions. I don’t 
know where to start. There have been so many over the years, but they’ve changed…with beloved family members passing away and others, growing up and moving away.
Years ago, when I was a little girl, we spent our Thanksgivings with my mom’s side of the family. Her family and all her extended family, moved here to Southern California from Arkansas in the 50s. They spread out, throughout the southland to Los Angeles, San Diego, with a large percent of them setting up digs in Yucaipa, CA.
Each year, the families took turns hosting Thanksgiving, so we were usually driving somewhere early that morning. I remember being so excited each year, to see all my cousins and aunts and uncles, who we hadn’t seen throughout the year. All my cousins were my age and we looked forward to proving to each other, how much we had grown the past year! When we became teenagers, it became even more important to prove how many street smarts we had acquired and how “cool” we had become.
My dad, brother, all my uncles, second uncles, and pretty much all the males of the family used to participate 
in the annual “Turkey Bowl,” a “touch football” game (that inevitably ended in “tackle football”) played at the local high school football field. The women and all the girls, used to stay home and cook, gossip and worry about which man would get hurt – Every year there were injuries and trips to the E.R.!
My mom and her three brothers adapted to the California lifestyle easily, as they were young when they came here. By the time they were adults they had all but lost their southern accents, but the older family members never lost sight of their southern roots. Some bought farms in Yucaipa (when it was mostly farmland), raised pigs (for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners), had fruit orchards AND secretly made “moonshine” behind the back barn! I remember many a Thanksgiving in Yucaipa, when moonshine got the better of one or more of my great uncles. Once, a fistfight broke out between them and my mom and dad swooped me up and into the car… making a mad dash home. Once, my great uncle, Johnny, imbibed a bit too much and drove his car into the screened-in porch of my Granny’s house! Again, mom 
and dad swooped me up in their arms, into the car…and made a mad dash home!
Years later, after many of those family members had passed, my mom took over Thanksgiving hosting duties. These were some of my favorite memories. I had a young family of my own by then and we would load up the kids and make the drive to her house early Thursday morning. There was
always a store-bought cheese ball on the table upon our arrival and the smell of Thanksgiving was everywhere! My mom was remarried by then and her husband, Paul, made the most divine dressing ever! He would come around the corner and signal for us to come into the kitchen to sample a taste. He would always ask, “does it need anything?” KNOWING already it was perfection…. he knew how good it was, he just wanted to show off – a tradition AND recipe I stole from him and use every year!
After an amazing dinner, we’d settle in for “game time” – usually Poker or Trivial Pursuit, my mom at the head of the table, Paul at the other head, both of them a little toasted from all the wine, ecstatic to have all their family surrounding them….”conducting” music to the soundtrack of “Amadeus.“ Those were the happiest days of their lives, I suspect.
Now it’s Thanksgiving 2009 – I have no idea where the time went, because it was just yesterday that I was running through the orchards in Yucaipa, with my cousins, stopping every so often to play a game of “Truth or Dare.”
I’ve had the honor of 
hosting Thanksgiving for about 20 years now. Both my parents and my husband’s have passed to the other side, many other family members, as well – including some amazing and beloved dogs! I don’t dwell on those losses very much throughout the year, but on Thanksgiving they are all here with me….I feel my Mom’s approval, as I’m cleaning the bird at 5:00 in the morning, my Dad winking at me for a job well done, my stepfather guiding me as I chop chicken livers for “his” dressing recipe, my father-in-law, who used to sneak in and eat all the dressing, before it ever made it to the Thanksgiving table; and my adorable dog, Calvin, who once jumped on the table, stole a turkey leg, hid in the laundry room to eat it, then turned into 
“Cujo”, when I tried to get it back!
The hours from 5:00 am to 7:00 am on Thanksgiving morning are the most precious of my whole year, every year. It’s still and dark outside and my kitchen is filled with the spirits of ALL my departed loved ones. I reflect on all my treasured memories of an era that will never be again – at the same time,
anticipating the sheer joy when my kids will walk through the door!
We’ll eat cheese balls and patés; I’ll lure everyone into the kitchen to tease them with a “sample” of Paul’s famous dressing; we’ll recite lines from our favorite Thanksgiving movie, “Avalon” (which isn’t technically a Thanksgiving movie – just a beautiful film about the importance of family). My son will “Cut the Toykey” (a line from Avalon), we’ll eat way too much; clear the dishes and make room for the most important part of the day – “game time.” I’ll be a little toasted, sitting at the head of the table, “conducting” to whatever music is on my iPod playlist – happier than I’ve been all year, surrounded by my family and all the people I love! That’s why Thanksgiving IS ~ and ALWAYS will be, my favorite holiday.
Thank you for sharing .. I love reading it!
Thank you for sharing. You reminded me why I love Thanksgiving too. Family is always important and a holiday about family is great.
You just made me get all misty eyed.
I wish i had those kind of memories of past Thanksgivings with family but i guess everyone has different traditions
*hugs* Thank you for sharing yours
Sandy, that was the most incredibly moving tribute to your family! I’m sure that the current generation will be recounting similar tales of Thanksgivings at your home for decades to come. P.S. Is it too late for you to adopt me? Even just for Thanksgiving
Sandy
Wow , phew, its 7 am here in the UK and I am checking in before leaving for work. With each line I read I could feel the warmth and love from a traditional family,pet loving home and it made me cry and smile. I spent years in the same loving environment with the whole family at my Mum and Dad’s house with all the extended family, the dogs (3 Old English Sheepdogs, Robert, Honey and Rebel, Robert being mine and named after Robert Plant lol) all to celebrate Christmas and Boxing Day dinners. The game playing, the Uncles and Aunts who all sang and made drum kits out of the saucepans for us kids, and taught us the tradition of ‘playing the spoons’. Mum slaving away in the Kitchen happily content with everyone being there. Latter years we always returned complete with Grandchildren until, she could no longer cook due to her Osteoporosis causing way too much pain, so the venue switched to my home and the tradition continued. Last year Mum decided she finally wanted to go ‘Home’ as she was becoming so ill, she hung on over Christmas, she did not want to pass on what she called a significant day like my Niece’s Birthday or Christmas/Boxing day. I spent time with her all through December and most importantly Christmas Day, I sat with her all day in the hospital, she had been placed in an isolated room having now contracted a hospital super bug. She had my Ipod and listened over and over again to Michael Buble’ with Me & Mrs Jones, I read her all her Christmas cards and she opened her present from the hospital charity … Men;s shower Gel, even though she was weak she smiled as she saw the funny side of that. I was joined by my Daughter, Niece, Brother and his wife and the phone calls from my Son and my Nephew who couldn’t hack it as they had being Mum’s blue eyed boys had already been given the I love you both dearly speech and could not do it again. She would not give in so Boxing day was a repeat for me,and she finally passed the day after very very peacefully. Christmas this year will feel odd but like you say her spirit, the memories of her, he dogs and others will always remain with us and for that I am so grateful. So now tearfully off I go to work, but happy as you can never beat that feeling of a loving family and friends.
dee x
Sandy, your post really touched me! (i’ve got to admit it almost moved me to tears) it makes think about the importance of keeping strong family values, despite the fact that things move not the way you wished they did…
i wish you a happy Thanksgiving with your beloved ones.
thanks for your blog, you’re doing a great job!!
have a good day.
(ps: sorry for my level of english, i’m french)
Dammit… there is too much dust in the air.. need a tissue. I will be going to my oldest’s for her first Thanksgiving, new traditions are in the air
you made me cry too!
this is the sweetest recount
happy thanksgiving!!!
You are SO beautiful. Radiant. Have a wonderful day Thursday! Thank You for sharing and huge hugs and kisses! Oh! And Ichabod has something funny about insects reincarnating over at his room, made me laugh and think of You!
Cheers and Namaste All!
SURPRISE FOR YOU ON MY BLOG. COME SEE!
Thank you for sharing this. I live 3,000 miles from my brothers (who themselves live in 2 different states), our parents have passed away and we were never close to uncles or cousins due to geography. I don’t have a lot of Thanksgiving memories, warm or otherwise, and reading this made me smile and even a few tears.
I’m always a little jealous of people who have the kinds of family memories you do – don’t get me wrong, I had a good childhood and I love my brothers, but there were some challenges to growing up…I may not be near family now, but I do have an amazing group of friends.
Anyway, thank you for sharing your memories and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Now I’ve gotten my keyboard all wet from tears streaming down my face!
Oh, what wonderful memories. Thanks for sharing this with us–made me tear up a little, remembering my own past holidays and departed loved ones.
My most vivid Thanksgiving memories are of being at my grandma’s house. My dad loved to hunt and my grandma lived way out in the country, so we would head to her place for Thanksgiving week so he could go deer hunting. She and I would do a ton of cooking and baking, culminating in a table-groaning meal. And of course, we also baked cookies and pepperoni rolls for the guys to take into the woods as snacks.
I remember my favorite cousin being there with us one year, bugging me while I helped granny chop. He stuck the leafy end of a stalk of celery into my ponytail like a sort of corsage-I found it there hours later. It’s funny how little things like that stick in your head.
Happy Gobblepalooza to you and yours!
As a kid, Thanksgiving was always at my “Ma’s” – my great-grandmother’s house. Because she watched me after school for years (and we lived with her in later years until she passed), it wasn’t so much about coming home, but helping her get ready for everyone ELSE to come home. The “dining room”, which was really the bedroom closest to the kitchen, had to be perfect and was always PACKED to the gills.
When she knew she was getting older and her time was getting close to ending, she called all of “the girls” to her separately and gave us each one of her “secret” traditional recipes, with the promise we would NEVER share them with each other. I guess in her mind, it was a way to make us all stay together after she was gone, because my grandfather (her son in law) had died a few years before at Thanksgiving, and my extended family pretty much collapsed with his loss.
Of course, I’m the only one in my family with the energy and desire to really dig in and cook or bake, so all the “girls” have been more than willing to hand over copies of the recipes she gave them. All I need now is to figure out her cream gravy recipe and I will have them all! (It’s the ONLY one she never gave away…)
With both of them gone by the time I got into HS, I’ve had a REALLY hard time getting into the spirit of Thanksgiving in the ensuing years, but for my kiddoes, I try.
Eventually, I’d like to host another of my “Orphan’s Thankgiving” dinners, where I invite over all the friends, neighbors and such who either have no family to go home to, or can’t get home for the holiday. I did that my first Thanksgiving out on my own – 13 guests in a 300SF apartment w/ one bathroom! It was insane and crowded and noisy, but so much laughter and joy…. By the time dinner was ready, I had borrowed dishes, utensils, pots, pans, fridge space and ovens from 3 neighbors and STILL had to ask people to BYO silver and seating. I had guests spilled out onto the front step and into my balcony. But no one cared…. I guess that’s what it was all about.
Darn, now I’ve gone and made MYSELF tear up.
I so enjoyed your lovely reminiscence of Thanksgivings past. I was clapping my hands with glee as I started to read. Then I was nodding my head, as my memories are very similar – traveling in the crowded back seat between my brothers (so they wouldn’t fight) and the football games. Tears at memeories of loved ones passed & tears at the sweetness of loved ones present. You have a sensational way with words.
Our family is down to very few to keep the traditions. Cousins have their own families and spouses families to celebrate with. I feel so fortunate to have the memories of “old-fashioned” family celebrations.
I love you so for sharing this with us. Even the responses have touched my heart. Have a blessed, happy Thanksgiving with family and friends.
Thank you so very much!!
What wonderful traditions. I relocated to LA from Arkansas about year and a half ago! I’m guessing you wouldn’t look at me funny should I mention chocolate gravy and biscuits, would you? Seems no one around here has heard of it, but I just love it.