I Love Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is for sure my favorite holiday of the whole year! I normally go up to Richmond to spend the day with my dad's side of the family. This has been a tradition since I was a very little girl, Thanksgiving with Dad's family and Christmas with either Mom's family in Florida or as a family ourselves at home. Sometimes Mom's family would come to our place for Christmas too.

My Mother's family is smaller and while they are just as close it is a more serious and formal king of gathering. The TV is normally off and dinner is served at the table with fine china and cloth napkins - which is fine when the entire family can fit at a table for 8!

The Richmond family is very large and very loud and very loving! They are friendly and welcoming to everyone and fiercely loyal to their own. Dinner is on paper plates and everyone eats all day long! We have issues such as a few criminals, many smokers and several marriages each and several teen pregnancy's, but we also have more love and dedication and closeness than most of the other families that I have experienced over the years. We have shared each other's deepest grief and greatest joy and there is so much love that it can be overwhelming!

Thanksgiving to me is about family and food! That's it! Simple and complex at the same time! I love eating, as my waistline will testify to, and I love being in the company of so many generations of family. My me-me and pa-pa will be there, all my aunts and uncles, all my cousins and the children of my cousins and sister. There will be husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, a few friends of various family members, and even an ex or two may show up - all will be welcomed with a plate of food!

I am in charge of Cranberry Salad this year. We have always had the canned cranberries until a few years ago, when I brought my secret recipe - it was gone in about 10 minutes and it has been requested in larger and larger quantities every year since! I am also going to bring a dessert, but I have not decided on which one yet. I think I made the coconut cake last year (or Smug-Sister did) so I would like to do something different, but not something that would have issues making the trip! We both have Friday off work, so we are planning on driving up on Thursday morning and back home on Friday afternoon. This will give us plenty of time with the family, and still plenty of time at home to relax and get all the normal weekend stuff done!

I love Thanksgiving and I am looking so forward to it!!