Thanksgiving 2020

Happy Thanksgiving!!!
Thanksgiving to me is a time to show thanks and appreciation to the ones in our lives and God. I think this is what the pilgrims and native Americans were doing hundreds of years ago. They were setting their differences aside and showing each other that they could coexist. For my generation, it was time to step away from our usual everyday commitments and spend time with family and friends.

As a child, we always watched the Macy’s day parade, usually choosing our favorite float. I remember getting excited when floats like Tony the Tiger, Scooby-Doo, Snoopy and of course Tom the Turkey came down Times Square. The floats always looked so big to me alongside the towering buildings of New York City. NYC looked as if it was a fictional place that didn’t exist with buildings that even on tv you couldn’t see the very tops of. I had a fear of heights, so I couldn’t imagine people living or working in such tall buildings. Nothing I had seen in Roanoke, Virginia compared to what I saw on tv.

My family was small, with really no relatives, so we never traveled on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was a day when no business was open, no start of Black Friday, just one of the few days of the year where the car never left the driveway. If the weather was good we would go up in the park for an hour or two and play football or basketball. We always watched football on one of the 2 channels on tv. The third channel ABC was out of Lynchburg and unless we adjusted the antenna on the house, the picture was what we called snow. A simpler time and day, but not necessarily better. It’s all really a mental perception of what you make it be. I just wish today that people didn’t have to work and were able to spend the day as they wish.

One of my fond memories of Thanksgiving was the smell of food being prepared, and all of the baked desserts and cookies. We only had feasts at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Rest of the year, it was eaten if you were home when dinner was prepared, or fix something when you did come home. As the youngest of four, I don’t remember getting seconds, probably why I was so skinny growing up. Thanksgiving, I wasn’t keen on turkey, so my mom would fix ham for me. Even on Thanksgiving, I don’t remember having so much food that I was stuffed as I do as an adult. I do remember the smell of cinnamon and brown sugar with freshly baked bread. Hence I having a sweet tooth!

Thanksgiving was a day I looked forward too because it was a day that was different from the rest of the year. As much as we try to hang unto traditions, times change and things become different. As corny as it may be, we need more days like Thanksgiving, to spend time with our families, relax, and create new memories with the ones we love.

Being from a small family, I always wondered what it would be like to have more than six people attend a holiday gathering. Hopefully, one day, that the people who are close to me and the few I have opened up too as a family will get together for a large festive and create some memories of our own.

These are my Thanksgiving thoughts with room for many new memories.

Happy Thanksgiving!
James

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