Perhaps I should name this "TRADITIOOOOOON! Tradition!" (a song from Fiddler on the Roof). I am a sucker for tradition. If I haven't made it clear yet, change is very hard for me. This year was the first year I have EVER been away from my parents for my birthday and Thanksgiving. Everything went well and I had a good time being with friends. But, as much as we say friends are like family (and some definitely seem that way), there is nothing like those people who have lived with me my whole life and know all about my previous inability to pronounce my Rs, my dreaded fear of "being sent to the facilities" (I thought facilities meant jail), and the awesome stuffed animal kickball games my brother and I played (the stuffed animals were the players, not the ball!!).
My family has always had a lot of traditions at Thanksgiving. Mommy cooks up a storm and I help. I usually get excused to watch the Macy's Parade and yell for Mommy to come when a song from a Broadway show is about to start. After the parade, Grandpa Smith usually carves the turkey. I make sure the table is set and that everyone's place card is present and vertical (some of them were made by my brothers when they were in elementary school, so they aren't in the greatest shape). We have our amazing meal of turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, squash, creamy onions, stuffing, homemade oatmeal molasses rolls with homemade cranberry-orange relish, etc. It is a classic New England Thanksgiving dinner. It is beautiful and pretty much the most delicious meal of the year.
Before we dig into the Libby's pumpkin pie and homemade special apple-cranberry pie we go through our Thanksgiving rites. Someone reads through the official proclamation of Thanksgiving as a National Holiday. We recite Psalm 100 together. Then, Mommy goes through our Thanksgiving vocabulary word scramble. There are pieces of paper that each have one word on them; for example, "taptoo." The first person to say "potato" gets the paper and whoever has the most at the end wins. We've done this so many times I have them all memorized and have to have a 5 second handicap. Next, my brothers and I are obligated to sing "We hunt buffalo," a cute (but now politically incorrect) song my oldest brother learned in kindergarten or 1st grade about Native Americans. We perform this ritual by wearing ancient grocery bags that we decorated when we were wee children, wearing dyed noodle necklaces and beating old oatmeal containers that have been decorated and converted into authentic looking drums. We do the motions too. It is quite a sight that you should probably never see unless you are prepared to learn the motions, make your own grocery bag, necklace and drum and sing along. Next tradition-my 2nd favorite. We use the alphabet as a tool to say what we're thankful for. Let's say Mommy starts, so she says something that starts with A. Apples. I'm next to her so I get B. I may say I'm thankful for brothers and the beach. Zach is next to me, so he gets C. He says he's thankful for Carrie and chocolate, etc, etc, etc. This is a really fun way to say what we're thankful for without dragging on until midnight or collapsing from too much turkey consumption. The final, and my favorite tradition is listening to part of a cassette tape that my Mom's younger siblings sent to her the first Thanksgiving she was away from home. We listen to a "sermon" by Sister Suzy (my Aunt Nancy). She preaches on "Thou Shalt Not Kill Thy Turkey" and it is the most hilarious thing I have ever heard IN MY LIFE!!!! Not only is she funny, but my uncle is making innocent turkey noises in the background and the whole thing is just so ridiculous I almost bust a gut just thinking about it!
After all that, we eat our hard-earned pie. I whip the cream - and get to lick a beater when I'm done. Then we usually go for a walk and just have a nice, relaxing afternoon. Mommy picks over the turkey, freezes some and makes the rest into soup that will feed us for the next 3 nights.
Now you might be able to understand better why it was so weird for me to spend Thanksgiving in Ohio with someone who has only known me for just over 3 years and her family. I had fun, and the turkey was great, but as my cousin pointed out, it's a lot harder to impose your traditions on others when you're not hosting. I made it through, though. I got choked up when the Macy's parade started and a couple other times over the course of the day. But, I felt very welcome at Keegan's house and her family was incredibly kind to me. My parents called that night and we talked about our day and I sang "We Hunt Buffalo" for Mommy. So everything turned out ok. The world is still turning and I remain truly thankful for all the things God has given me.
No comments:
Post a Comment