At this point, I have started this post about a dozen times, ruminating on a variety of topics, but nothing has felt quite right. Until this thought:
Happy Thanksgiving, on this Thanksgiving that has felt both the least like Thanksgiving and yet more like Thanksgiving than any other.
We’re not in Michigan anymore; there isn’t frost on the ground, a roasting turkey in the oven, frantic coordinations to change and put out the silverware before the company starts bustling in through the garage door, shedding shoes and coats, arms laden with food and flowers. Those were beautiful Thanksgivings with my adopted family of over twenty years, and days that defined home for me, from waking up in the guest room to passing out on the couch after lunch. But picture this: it’s 82 degrees, the ship deck smells like seafood and humanity, children squealing and slipping down water slides while parents lounge on white towels and sip ‘sodas’. My wife and I have just watched the new Disney movie, ate fresh popcorn, alone with each other for once, and we peer over the glass at our daughter, who is having a jolly old time stepping through the splash pad with her grandmother and aunt. We head into the buffet and fill our plates with tuna, curry, meatballs, shrimp, and spatzle. We sit down with our family to eat and my niece brings my daughter an ice cream cone (just the cone; she likes to bite it). We keep forgetting it’s Thanksgiving, it feels so little like one. After lunch, we all take a nap before dinner, where I have the biggest piece of prime rib I’ve ever had in my life. My brother-in-law wears a Stitch Hawaiian shirt and my teenage nephew, whom I haven’t seen in days, eats the entire basket of rolls. After dinner, my niece, my BIL and I shed our dinner clothes and run up the stairs to the water slide, now empty but for the twinkle of the stars since everyone else is eating. We ride the tube down until we’re hoarse from screaming and practically puking. Try eating three X three course meals in a day and then running up three flights of stairs and then going down a water slide three times. Guaranteed pukery.
So it is a Thanksgiving like no other but as I hold my daughter and shield her from the cool night air, and kiss my wife’s head as she quickly falls asleep next to me, I feel that it’s memories like these that make us so alive, so human, so grateful. I love traditions and upholding them, but some days you can turn the traditions on end and just be grateful to be with your family, grateful to be in the sun, and grateful that no one has to cook food for five hours for fifteen people and clean up afterwards. We can just enjoy each other’s company.
Tomorrow we spend a day on an island, and it may be a Black Friday like no other- our hearts filled with sand and sea rather than filling the void with consumerism- okay, there might still be a little consumerism, if we can get a signal out on the beach— but surely not as much as there would’ve been if we’d just been sitting at home, coming down from the high of a family gathering.
We will discuss more on December 1st. We have lots to discuss.
Until next time, always go black tie.