Thanksgiving

It's Thanksgiving. 
After Tammie told me this morning this is her least favorite holiday,
I said, "Yeh--I've never really gotten it."  We took land from the Native Americans and feasted. Hmm.

Fast forward an hour later.
While I was doing the dishes, listening to the local public radio station, there
was a story about Nora Ephron, an interview she did before she passed away.  Because my listening skills aren't the most focused always, I'm not sure if she said this or someone else, but at some point a woman was
speaking about Thanksgiving.  And how it was the one time of the year that her
family, which was as dysfunctional as most, came together portraying the image
of a Norman Rockwell painting. 

That stuck with me.
My childhood growing up was rather Normal Rockwell-ish.
I was fortunate to have parents who loved each other and did their best for my brother
and I.  But I knew that wasn't true of other friends or even other family members.  Yet,
at Thanksgiving (and really Christmas and Easter too) we would  get together with extended family assuming life was simple and good.

There was an intention to love and appreciate family and food.

Of course, as an adult I know that there can be stress because of those two factors also.
If you are the host, you clean and get it all in order, to appear the picture of joy.  You worry something might not go right in the preparation, but you do it and accept it, because family is more important than your stress.  Hopefully. 

Family is love.  And family doesn't have to mean blood relation, but anyone you sit with in gratitude. 

So, while I'm eating my mashed potatoes and gravy -- I will be thankful I "get it" a little bit more today.

Om