I woke up this morning with Thanksgiving on my mind. No, not the endless list of things to get done this morning as I prepped for family to arrive; that scenario didn't happen this year. Instead, I woke thinking about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and one of my strongest memories of a Thanksgiving gone by.
It must have been about 1974, give or take a year or two earlier. Mom always made a beautiful and delicious Thanksgiving dinner. She started a day or two before, fixing salads, baking pies, shooing us kids out of the kitchen so she could work. On Thanksgiving morning, Dad would load my brother, Kirk and me up in our white Ford Falcon and we would head to the wooded campus of Central Baptist Theological Seminary where our Grandma Ruby lived. I thought we were just going to pick her up and bring her to our house for the day - and that was true. But, the other, more hidden purpose of the trip seemed lost to me as a child of 8: Dad was getting us out of the house so Mom could finish all the last minute preparations for our big dinner.
After the parade ended, Dad, Grandma Ruby, Kirk, and I loaded back into the Falcon and went home for the best dinner of the year. Usually there were others there, too: maybe neighbors, sometimes older women in our church who didn't have family to be with on Thanksgiving, occasionally some extended family of our own. But mostly, Thanksgiving was OUR day - just our little family and Grandma Ruby. And it was perfect.
Thanksgiving 1984...10 years later, not much had changed in the way we did Thanksgiving. We still watched the parade in the morning. Mom still made a big meal, only now I was her main helper. I peeled, cooked, and mashed the potatoes, helped her set the table, put out the relish tray (my favorite part because I got to sneak bites of olive and okra!), and made the tea. That year would have been my first Thanksgiving after high school and we would have been so excited to have Kirk home from college. Grandma Ruby had moved away by then so we no longer celebrated with her. A day full of preparation and afternoon dining would have been made perfect in the evening when our best friends, John and Roxie and their little girls, Alana (5) and Autumn (1) came over for Thanksgiving pie and conversation. Through the years, their family and ours gradually started spending more and more Thanksgivings together, at least in the evening. Still, Thanksgiving was OUR day - just our little family and our extended "fam" - and it was perfect.
Thanksgiving 1994...10 more years had passed and now, Thanksgiving Day looked a bit different than it had when I was a child. On Wednesday evening, my little family - my husband and my 3 kids, Heather (7), Aaron (5), and Jonathan (2), loaded up in our gold Cutlass Ciera and headed to Missouri for the annual Vaughn Thanksgiving dinner. On the way we listened to Christmas music and always sang our rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas. Each person had their assigned days; Jonathan's part was "5 Golden Rings," and he always said, "Ri-ri-ri-rings!" We'd arrive late Wednesday night at my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's house in Easton where we'd visit until very late, then we were up the next morning to watch the parade and get our food ready for the big dinner. Around noon we'd head out on the 30 minute trip to Aunt Noma's house in rural Maysville where cousins were already tumbling out of the house, football in hand, to get started on a full day of playing. Aunts in the kitchen, chatting as they worked, uncles in the living room, watching football, older cousins visiting, younger cousins dispersed to various rooms to play games. Soon, the heavily laden table in the garage was ready and we enjoyed a delicious meal, followed by more football, more visiting, too many desserts, and just time together. I miss those days. On Friday, we'd head to Kansas City and have Thanksgiving all over again with my parents. It was OUR day - just our little family, and it was perfect.
Thanksgiving 2004...a decade filled with changes. Now, I was the one hosting Thanksgiving in our home; Mom and Dad lived in our little town and they came over to join us. Heather was a senior in high school, Aaron a sophomore, Jonathan in 6th grade, and now Ryan, our youngest, was in kindergarten. We still listened to Christmas music on Wednesday night, we still watched the parade on Thanksgiving morning, we still made all the delicious foods from years past; now Heather or Aaron helped with the relish plate and sneaked bits of olive and okra. We were thankful and grateful to God for how He had protected Aaron from a potentially serious back injury, how He had given Mom and Dad a new home in retirement, and how He had blessed us in the past year. It was OUR day - just our little family, and it was perfect.
Thanksgiving 2014...oh, how 10 years can change the landscape of a family. New faces - Hannah, Lindsey, Madelynne, Charlie - new generations to love and pass our traditions down to. A familiar face was missing that year as Dad celebrated his first Thanksgiving in heaven. I doubt he minded, but oh, how his presence was missed at our Thanksgiving table. We still watched the parade and did all the things we normally did, but our hearts were heavy and we looked for him in every moment. Still, it was OUR day - just our growing family, and it was perfect.
Thanksgiving 2020...the last six years have flown by; there are more new faces: Duke, Cora, David, Parker, Aaron C. Our little family is not little anymore. That's a good thing, but I also know 2020 has not been easy. F
or many of us, the last nine months have crept at a snail's pace. COVID-19 threatened to steal our Thanksgiving, and for some, perhaps it did. Today doesn't look at all like the Thanksgivings of my childhood, or of my children's childhoods, but that doesn't mean that the warmth of the holiday is gone. In fact, perhaps the uncertainty of 2020 has made this Thanksgiving even more important, more sacred. This year we have the opportunity to think about what's really important - it's not the parade, though that's always fun. It's not the days of food prep, though that's a way we show our love for our families. It's not listening to Christmas music, though that helps us remember why we celebrate this season. It's not eating and visiting and relaxing in front of the football game.
No, Thanksgiving 2020 is a time to look back and see how good God has been to us, in spite of ourselves. It's a time to be truly thankful for what matters - the salvation we have in Him, the faith we can access to walk in uncertain times, our friends and family in Christ, our loved ones - even if we cannot be with them today. Oh, that we would have a parade to celebrate these important moments! I think that's why the psalmist said, "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever."
It's still OUR day...and it is still perfect because it is the day the Lord gave us.
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