Happy Thanksgiving

I have found that the perfect solution for avoiding the holiday blues and the heart ache that comes with missing loved ones who are here only in memory. Just do not celebrate holidays.

Don't worry, I am not advocating abolishing Thanksgiving. I am just rationalizing the fact that I am going to have my little Thanksgiving dinner with Sam and Harry before Sam rushes off to work. It could have been worse because until mid-day today, I thought I would be working also. A mad dash to the store (perilous in itself) and we are all set to have our favorites.

Unfortunately, I will only have two pies (for three people?), and two vegetable dishes instead of the plethora of choices I used to have celebrating with my mother's side of our family. As kids, for years we traveled to Cadiz, Ohio. I can still see the frosty covered hills and barren trees as we approached the area of southeastern Ohio known as coal country. Most of the drive was two lane roads twisting and turning around the hills which was always a challenge for my youngest sister Mary Beth, who was usually car sick most of the way and couldn't appreciate arriving to a house that smelled like turkey yummy heaven to the rest of us. Cadiz is famous for being the birthplace of Clark Gable. The town is small. My Aunt Dolly and Uncle John lived in town, and I don't think there were suburbs in Cadiz. There house was old and furnished in antiques. The view from the upstairs windows was pastoral, of rolling hills and the neighbors ponies. There were nooks and crannies with treasures galore. Aunt Dolly had a box of trinkets - the most amazing collection of probably every crackerjack toy made. I am talking about "cool" stuff before the company got cheap! And she had a cupboard in her kitchen stocked with toys and goodies to play with. Their living room was stuffed with comfortable furniture and for some reason, perhaps economic, there were several patterns of wall paper on the walls. This was a house that was comfortable, cluttered and homey. No House and Garden decor. Every turn had some wonderful thing to look at, play with, or even wear.

Uncle John was the bank president. But, in his retirement, he and Aunt Dolly collected antiques and Uncle John learned to cane chairs. We had dinner in the basement before moving upscale to the garage (decorated, heated and spotless with collections of glass antiques in the windows and art on the walls). The basement had hooks on the walls and a collection of caned wooden chairs so that when company came, there was seating. No folding metal chairs for us!! The dishes were matching china and all of the nieces have a plate or two now. I think the pattern is Blue Onion but I may be wrong. The glasses were mismatch and sometimes, in my clouded recollection, jelly jars, and my cousins and I would laugh at Aunt Dolly's frugality. After a day of food, playing with cousins, fresh air after feeding treats to the horses and sometimes, even taking side trips like visiting the Harrison Ohio "old folks home" that was run by my Great Aunt Norma, or seeing the world's largest excavating shovel, the Silver Spade, it would be time to leave. My three siblings and my parents and I would get cozy in our warm car driving home, singing Christmas carols and exclaiming over the first holiday decorations we would see. The stars always seems so bright on that ride home and getting out of that car, being sleepy and so content, and stepping into the cold night air and the end of another perfect holiday, was always so hard.

Today, Aunt Dolly's daughter, Jane, still hosts Thanksgiving at her home in Richmond, Ohio. Her mother's china will be on the table as well as pitchers, vases, candlesticks and many other family heirlooms to make the memories continue. The last year I was there, there were also photos of the loved ones we miss so much who gave us the gift of love of family and of laughter and joy. I will miss the company, the catching up and the requisite hike in the woods after dinner. Happy Thanksgiving to the best family in the world!!