Thanksgiving is quickly approaching. It does not seem possible the wheel has turned and another year has passed. Christmas decorations hit the stores the day after Halloween. I'm fairly certain we don't need to rush the season that much. Seems to becoming a retail tradition I would just as soon live without.
Today is our oldest granddaughter's 19th birthday. Yesterday she and her family came to our house to celebrate. I'm wondering if it will be the start of a new tradition. It's always entertaining to have a house full of people. I am one to follow my mother's tradition of saving each memory in photos. While Mom would take her rolls of film to the local drug store to be developed, I now slip a SD card into the computer and download my photos. I can instantly share them with family via Facebook or the old-fashioned way -- e-mail. And for the really old, I can print them and send them via the post office. Ahh, such changes.
We have had a lot of Thanksgiving traditions throughout the years. My earliest recollection was of Mom spending days preparing Thanksgiving dinner. She made her own breadcrumbs for stuffing, ground cranberries, made mashed potatoes from scratch, agonized over the thawing of the bird and made sure we had a big bag of mixed nuts for cracking later in the afternoon on Thanksgiving Day.
Despite her preparations, Mom somehow managed to squeeze in an hour the day before Thanksgiving to come to school to watch our Thanksgiving Day program. There were five grades in our small elementary school -- kindergarten through fourth grade. Even grades did the Thanksgiving program and odd grades did the Christmas program. The programs were held in the town's "Community Hall," an old brick building next to the school. The building must have been a marvel when it was built. It came complete with a balcony, main floor seating (which doubled as a basketball court) a stage, scary bathrooms in the basement and a kitchen. Our school productions were of the amateur-ish variety but naturally, those parents who could make it to the program, thought they were wonderful. Mom would drive all the neighborhood kids home after the program and get back to making pies and grinding cranberries.
Grandpa Stehower and his cousin, Andy would come for Thanksgiving dinner. When Grandpa could no longer drive, Dad would drive to Grand Rapids and pick them up. Sometimes Dad would leave early in the morning so Grandpa and Uncle Andy (that is what we called him) could go to church with us. Other times we would leave for church and Dad would make the trip to Grand Rapids while we were sitting in the pew singing hymns of praise. Thanksgiving would not be complete without a rousing chorus of "We Gather Together."
I'm not certain how or when this began, but at some point Dad started the tradition of taking an annual Thanksgiving Day horseback ride. After dinner was over, the leftovers stored in the refrigerator, dishes were washed, dried and put away, and Mom's good silver was tucked away in the cupboard until Christmas, one of us would go out and saddle up one of the horses and Dad would take a ride around the block. Dad had a pair of cowboy boots and a white denim Levi jacket he would wear. I believe it was the only time he ever wore them. We could watch him go until he disappeared over "Grisson's Hill" and then we would watch for him to appear 10 minutes later on the other side of the block. As far as I know he never traveled faster than a walk and never deviated from his route.
When Dad's little excursion was over we would unsaddle the horse, go inside to enjoy our bag of mixed nuts. When Mom got out the vacuum to clean up the shells, it was Dad's cue to take Grandpa and Uncle Andy back home.
When I was a freshman in college, Mom and Dad sold our home and moved into an apartment. It was their home for six years while they built their retirement home along the shores of Lake Michigan. Uncle Andy was no longer with us but Dad would still drive to Grand Rapids to pick up Grandpa.
Then came marriage and a family of our own. Mom and Dad sold our home and moved into an apartment while they built their retirement home along the shores of Lake Michigan. Although there were a few years when they traveled to my sister's for the holiday and King and I had Thanksgiving alone, or invited friends over, Mom and Dad's new home was soon finished and we started traveling home for the holiday -- adding children each year for several years until we decided we either had to stop having babies or buy a small bus.
There were occasional holidays when we had snow, and the kids spent hours sliding down the hill to the beach at Mom and Dad's house. There were times with it was warm enough to dip our toes into the water. And there were other times when the waves crashed on the shore and we would stand screaming into the wind . . . just because we could.
The horse riding tradition tuned into rousing games of Trivial Pursuit. Men against the women, with the women almost always winning because my older sister happens to be a walking encyclopedia -- the men's one saving grace against total annihilation would be the "Sports and Leisure" category.
This year, I will undoubtedly be working. We are planning an early dinner at our house with any family members who want to share the day with us invited. I don't think I'll break out the good china or my mother-in-law's silver. We may use paper plats and plastic silverware as I'm not so much into washing dishes and I haven't owned a dishwasher since 1978.
Maybe it will be the start of a new tradition.
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