FROM WHERE I SIT FAMILIES GATHER FOR THANKSGIVING

FROM WHERE I SIT   Families Gather for Thanksgiving pat spilseth

Thanksgiving Day is a gentle reminder that we have much to be thankful for.  I’m blessed with good health, family, and friends plus a warm home, plenty of food, and the ever-changing lake which greets me every morning.  Of course, I’m also very grateful for Buddy, my loveable Beagle, who encourages me to get outside for a walk each day no matter what the weather.

Perhaps some of you will recall the picture, which hung in many dining rooms, kitchens and churches, of an elderly man praying before his simple meal.  The photograph entitled “Grace” portrays an attitude of thankfulness.  Photographer Eric Enstrom said, “I wanted to take a picture that would show people that even though they had to do without so many things because of the war, they still had much to be thankful for.”  

This Thanksgiving my family is spending Thanksgiving in Mexico with our daughter Kate and son-in-law Bernardo.  Determined to keep traditions intact, we’re planning to eat turkey and the trimmings at Sol’s place, Cafe Bohemio in Puerto Vallarta.   Sol and his partner are NYC actors who have created a bustling patio cafe in Old Town where we’ll dine outdoors at a linen-covered table feasting on turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberries and pumpkin pie.  

Thanksgiving week radio stations will play that memorable, age-old, Thanksgiving song, which has already begun to spin endlessly on my head’s turntable:

 “Over the river and through the wood,

To Grandfather’s house we go;

The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh

Through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,

Oh, how the wind does blow!

It stings the toes and bites the nose

As over the ground we go…”

Lydia Maria Child wrote this popular Thanksgiving song as a poem in 1844.  She wanted to celebrate childhood memories of visits to her Grandfather’s house.  Sometimes the song is alternated with lines about Christmas, rather than Thanksgiving.

The song makes me recall the holidays I loved so much as a kid.  When we went to Grandma DeKok’s house in Brooten, I’d get to see my Dad’s relatives and lots of cousins.  The gatherings were usually held at our Dutch Grandma’s home, which she shared with my Aunt Sadie, the red-headed post mistress in Brooten.  Sadie was a favorite aunt who sewed little girls’ dresses, canned chickens, fruit and vegetables, quilted cozy blankets, baked Dutch treats and was a consummate garage sale shopper.  It seemed to me that Aunt Sadie could do anything.  

Sadie and Grandma’s house smelled of chickens roasting in the kitchen.  In the living room, the uncles sat near the upright piano in overstuffed chairs and sofa smoking cigarettes though Uncle Dan was rarely without his fragrant pipe.  The aunts sat on hard, stiff-backed, wooden, dining room chairs after they’d busied themselves in the kitchen assembling the meal, fed the little ones, served coffee to the men, gathered their sewing, and finally sat for a few moments of rest and chatting.   Grandma was always dressed in dark colors, with her gray hair tucked into a bun.  Silently she’d rock back and forth in her wooden rocker near the window.  I never remember her saying anything.  

In the sunny kitchen, my cousins would sit around the gray Formica table in padded chairs, surrounded by smells of cooking chicken, potatoes and baking rolls.  Kool-aid was our treat along with rice crispy bars and sugar cookies, but only after we’d eaten a healthy meat and potatoes meal.  After eating, the kids would scoot to the many windowed front porch to play with the dolls, buggies, balls, trucks, Chinese checkers and Cootie games that Aunt Sadie had found at garage sales.  The afternoon passed too quickly: too soon we had to climb into our blue Hudson car and drive home.  At the close of the day, I longed to take my cousins home with me: I wanted brothers and more sisters to play with.  

Thanksgiving remains a favorite holiday for me, a time to gather family and friends together to remember our blessings.  689 words