HOME– We celebrated Thanksgiving early this year- one day early. It was the first time Rich’s side of the family and my side, spent it together.

After a lot of communal cooking inside [final hour with five women before meal:  reheating casseroles, making rice, heating rolls, putting ice in crystal glasses, arranging place cards, re-filling salt and pepper grinders] and outside [four men, two sacrificial birds: intensive cooking time calculations, blazing fire, scalding, boiling oil, emergency re-tooling of equipment, life or death intensity], we sat down to eat.

I started out at the kids’ table and as soon as they abandoned the meal, I graduated to the adults’ table. I looked around at this newly unified gathering of families. Everyone was laughing, telling stories, kidding with each other, behaving in all of the good ways that families behave.

One of us was pleasantly surprised by all of this lovey-dovey, genuine merriment. I’m afraid I actually hadn’t counted on having such a blessed holiday. I had approached the evening with apprehension. I certainly didn’t take it for granted that our first dual family gathering would turn out to be so much fun. So, I thank goodness I was wrong. I couldn’t have wished-up a more perfect Thanksgiving.

Around 11:15, I left to come post on the Apron, while my family was still hanging out, talking by the fire. However, my server was down and apparently it stayed down until after midnight, when I stopped checking.

So, for the second time this month, I missed posting due to technical issues beyond my control. And for the first time this month, I was actually thankful for those technical issues. I like to think someone up there was looking out for me, letting me take a small holiday, letting me hang out with family.

Posted on November 26th, 2009 under 30 Days. 30 Posts., Issue no. 8 • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback