Happy Thanksgiving

I'm guessing maybe 1966 or 67? (After that I had wire-rimmed hippie glasses.) This is with my dear grandfather, and we're performing the night-before-Thanksgiving ritual of stuffing the turkeys. A photo exists, somewhere, of this event every year, usually with my cousin Barbara also in the picture. My grandfather would have been in his mid-sixties here; he lived until he was 90, dying of a stroke a few days after another Thanksgiving. He was one of kindest, most generous people I've ever known, and we were very lucky to have him with us so long.

J. and I celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving last month, quietly, just the two of us. Our plan was to have a big meal on American Thanksgiving and invite a lot of our Montreal friends, but we've been working so hard we just couldn't manage it; I'm relieved that we didn't try.

When I think of those long-ago days and the tables full of family and friends, many of whom are gone now, I don't feel nostalgic or sad, as much as grateful. I'd love to see each and every one of them again, but they do live on vividly in my memory. Gradually, I'm learning how to deal with holidays without the irreplaceable people; holidays that are different instead of traditional. It's taken me a while, but it's a relief not to have to repeat the same patterns in order to feel OK at these times of year that are difficult for so many people.

I was incredibly fortunate to have a secure and relatively happy childhood; you learn that as you get older. My immediate family is much smaller now, but I feel rich in friends. So today I want to say thanks for past and present blessings, and to wish that more people in our world could have enough food, enough warmth, enough love. It's a good day, too, to do something tangible about that.

Comments

[Marja-Leena]

Beth, so much here resonates with me, so much similarity in our lives and how they have changed over the years. I do have my own children and grandchildren now but they are spread out so get togethers become a big thing, with finding more beds and cooking more food. I'm slowing down and slowly the younger ones do take over some of those big gatherings - sort of like passing the torch now and then.

I find it interesting how much bigger Thanksgiving is in the US than Canada.

[Beth]

Me, too, Marja-Leena. And somehow the day stays non-commercial, except for the ridiculous and offensive shopping frenzy the day afterward.

[K]

Beth - Happy Thanksgiving to you both! If ever you want to have those traditional celebrations, you know that you have your Montreal family to count on. See you Sunday for a Chinese Thanksgiving Feast!

[Hattie]

So wonderful to read this. I loved the photo!

[Marja-Leena]

Beth, speaking of Black Friday, it has come here this year in a big way from stores wanting to stem the flow of business over the border. At least it's not a holiday period here, but still... yikes.

[Duchesse]

Last year, I was reading a list of donors to a local charity, idly scanning the names. Someone had sent a contribution as "Anonymous. God bless the lonely people".

I have never forgotten that person's acknowledgment; holidays can be hard and lonely if one has neither the bounty of a family or a table.

[Tom]

I am so very happy that there are people out there who are able to look back on family memories that are happy. So glad that other people's experiences of family are better than I can imagine. Bless you all! I also can be part of thanksgiving, for what I have now.

[mary]

I love the photo. What great memories!

[Roderick Robinson]

You could be making the stuffing and don't appear to be happy in your work. Cheeks slightly puffed out in a teenager sort of way: Why, always the stuffing? In semiotic terms the new glasses are a great improvement. Horn rims for the aspirant genius (I wore them too when we lived in the US but I never fooled anyone); wire rims to say Look! I've arrived!

I remember reading in Saturday Review (don't suppose it's still going) that Thanksgiving was superior to Christmas in that it was harder for commercial forces to corrupt. We did the right thing except we didn't feel honour-bound to eat turkey. In fact the subject arose on our return from our over-nighter spent in remote Wales - I'm not sure we've ever cooked turkey during our 53-year-long union though we have, of course, eaten it elsewhere. I understand there's a movie out where a turkey uses a time machine to travel back to the Pilgrim Fathers in order to change their culinary preferences. Obviously it didn't work.

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