For 15
years, I've had the privilege of having
a column printed on Thanksgiving Day. I've written about nostalgic
Thanksgivings – sitting around the huge dining room table with my grandparents,
aunts, uncles and cousins while we enjoyed the traditional Thanksgiving menu of
turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes and gravy alongside traditional Lebanese
dishes of tabooley, stuffed cabbage rolls and baked kibbee.
I've
also written about the Cajun side of our Thanksgiving feasts that included
fried turkeys, oyster dressing and deep-dish pecan pie.
There
was the first year I cooked Thanksgiving dinner all by myself and the absolute
terror I felt when facing a raw 15-pound bird, two packages of cornbread
dressing and a dozen bake-and-serve rolls.
There
was the year I forgot to defrost the turkey in enough time and got up four or
five times during the night to change out the water so that huge bird could go
in the oven at 6 a.m.
Over
the years, you've indulged reading as my sons went from mischievous toddlers to
grown men. My dad lived long enough to read some of my columns, and my mom occasionally
cuts one out and tapes it to the refrigerator, right alongside the pictures of
her great grandchildren.
So in
trying to think of something new to say on this Thanksgiving, something
different than what I wrote in 1997, 2001 or 2008, I'm left scratching my head,
discarding every story line that pops into my head.
It's
easy to write about the sentimental slices of life – family friends, neighbors
and co-workers. Little kindnesses grease the wheels – someone holding the door
open for me and someone letting me merge into traffic without trying to take
the bumper off my car.
What
not to write about seems easier, like my unsuccessful attempts at maneuvering a
turkey, ham, apple pie and sweet potatoes in one oven in a four-hour time
frame. Nor am I going to write about the sublime joy of munching on Thanksgiving
leftovers while sitting watching a college football game on TV.
I'm not
going to write about Thanksgiving days from the past when the kids sat in one
room and the adults sat in the other room, they having verbal fights about
politics while we literally had food fights.
I'm
also not going to write about the pre-dawn Black Friday shopping trips my
sisters and sisters-in-law enjoyed for years.
What I
am going to write about is what a day of Thanksgiving means. A day to give
thanks for the big things like our families, our health, house, job, car and
enough cash in our pockets to go out for ice cream every once in a while.
Thanksgiving
is a time to ponder the experiences that make life worthwhile – the sound of
children laughing, the memory of our father's voice and how our mother's hands
felt when she fretted over our hot foreheads.
Friends
who understand our humor, especially those who've known us all our lives and
still laugh when we tell the same joke over and over again, are right up there
when I say my prayers of thanks.
A soft
pillow to snuggle up with at night. Comfortable slippers. A hot cup of coffee
first thing in the morning. Finding a pair of jeans that fit. The company of a
faithful dog. An unexpected chatty email from a best friend. A child curling up
in our laps to take a nap.
It's
the little things that turn into the big things that I'm most thankful for as
those little things stay with us the longest and ensure life's often rocky path
is a little less bumpy.
Happy
Thanksgiving and may your day be filled with a bounty of small but meaningful
joys.
This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.
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