Thanksgiving

Fall comes late in northern California. Its the first week in November before the leaves turn colors, the temperature drops, and the sky clouds up with winter rain. Halloween has come and gone, and if you are not a retailer, you begin to think about Thanksgiving. Even our chorus director, in his way of getting us all to know one another, asked the chorus members about their Thanksgiving plans last Monday evening. (He is hosting a Macedonian thanksgiving dinner at his house this year.)

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. Its simple - eat, drink, give thanks, and be merry -- what could be better than that? Spending time with family and friends. Four days off work in a row (unless you are in the retail business.) Football and shopping for some. Deer hunting for others.

My son did not have a chance to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family in Connecticut. Sean and I always visited my family in the summer, when the weather was not both cold AND rainy, and there was usually someplace I could take a restless child for a few hours, like the beach or the park. But the year Sean turned 17, he wanted to go back east for Thanksgiving to spend it with "family". Unfortunately, Sean never got that chance. I went back east by myself that November, and silently cried during the entire five hour plane ride east.

Now this year, my youngest niece, not quite sixteen, would like to have Thanksgiving at a friend's house, rather than with our extended family. While I understand her desire to do something different occasionally, and her boredom spending the whole day with her aunts and uncles, I can't stop thinking that my son would have given anything to spend just one Thanksgiving with "family".