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Thanksgiving

I’m not sure that put into words: the feeling this thoughts and emotions surrounding this Thanksgiving day, is something I can properly do. But since it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve put “pen to paper” for this blog, I am obligated to try.

As it turned out Thanksgiving Day was the first serious weather here in western New York, for this winter season. The importance of that point will become apparent as we move along here.

Thanksgiving dinner for our family was held at My Mom’s.

This was of some importance to me of itself, since I haven’t had Thanksgiving dinner in the house I grew up in, in many years. Things being what they are it’s likely that I won’t get many more chances to do that. My sister and my brother in law were at his parents’s place in Pennsylvania, and my brother was visiting his boy who now lives in Ohio, so we had a number less people who were going to be around, this year. Still, we had enough to make a pleasant day of it. [1]My mom was there course, as were my aunt and her husband. They are both astoundingly good cooks, and so you’ll understand that it’s a high praise indeed, when I say the food was exactly as expected.

We had expected my other uncle and his wife to join us, as well, but they could not because of the prior engagement… My uncle’s wife has a part time job which she had to work on Thanksgiving. Bummer.

[2]A fine time was had by all. The kids even behaved themselves. We sat we talked, we ate, we enjoyed each other’s company, and we reconnected. In short, we availed ourselves of some of those things which we spent the day being thankful for. To my mind, this has always been a central theme in our family Thanksgiving days… reconnecting with family, family certainly being at the top of the list of things to be thankful for. 

At the end of the day, we had some driving to do.  You see, during my days as a broadcaster I’ve worked enough Thanksgiving Days and Christmas days, birthdays, July 4th’s and so on to know how lonely a task that can be. So after the meal was over and just about everybody had gone home, I helped Mom into BitsBox, and off we went to 60 miles south to were my uncle’s wife was working, along with a care package filled with Thanksgiving dinner. They can’t come to the party? Fine. We take the party to THEM.

Which is not to say the trip was uneventful… Around here we can to get Lake effect snow more than any other kind of snow.  The closer to lake on you get, the more prevalent that kind of snow is bound to be. Such was true for this first serious weather day of the 2005/2006 winter season. We ended up with near blizzard conditions blowing and drifting north of interstate 90 and almost nothing but pure wind south of interstate 90.  There’s somehting about me you oughta know… I do tend to like moving the wheel myself when changing lanes.  THe wind, however, had other ideas. The trip that usually took me 45 minutes during the summer, took about double that amount of time, on this trip, but we were greeted with warm smiles which made the whole thing worthwhile.

There’s really not much else to report about my Thanksgiving this year. Perhaps though, that’s a story in itself. There is something to be said, I think, for the consistency and the traditions surrounding Thanksgiving day, and the way families gather on that day.

Except this year, with so many of my family spread all over the northeastern section of this country, and some faces missing, from my view, today, I am reminded just how precious that relationship is, and how important it has always been to me to have all those wonderful faces looking back at me across the holiday table.

Need you really ask, what it is I’m thankful for?