Back from the Dead: Ghosts of Thanksgivings Past

Here we are on Thanksgiving Eve! I'm spending my evening on the couch just hanging out with my sweetie. No cares in the world! The kids are with their grandparents for the holiday, so it is quiet, and I have no obligations. My sweetie and I are playing this little game to see who is finally going to give in and turn on the furnace for the first time. (It's down to 56º outside right now, and for us that is close enough to freezing!)

We have no big plans tomorrow. When we get hungry enough, we'll make a decision about which buffet we should go to, or maybe well just go up the road to the old-fashioned neighborhood diner. Who knows? Maybe turkey won't sound good, and I'll go ahead and make some steamy cabbage soup.

Blasphemy. I know.

(However, it would be acceptable if I were to "Save a turkey! Eat tamales!" as my students suggested today, right?)

It's time to review my history of Thanksgivings, which I wrote about in a special Thanksgivings Past series last year. I present them in the random order in which they were triggered in my head in a kind of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie fashion.

So...

It all started with a picture that my stepson brought home. Something about that turkey wearing a pot leaf triggered a memory about a melancholy Thanksgiving I spent with a friend of mine.

Thinking about that day triggered a memory of the year that I hosted my first Thanksgiving, but The Moms had difficulty relinquishing control.

Although my Thanksgivings have been pretty awful, I did stop to think about a particularly pleasant time when my parents and brother came to visit me here in Nevada.

Last year I did discuss the idea of having my own traditions, and the next post in the series tells about some lovely times I have spent in rural Idaho with an adopted family, but then the post takes a bittersweet turn as I reflected on the pains of motherhood, which as a new full-time stepmom, were very fresh struggles for me last year.

I finished off the pity party with my very first terrible Thanksgiving. You know the one where I met some very nice firemen and wished I could have met a nice locksmith, too.

Happy Thanksgiving--Present!