Around 75 Thanksgivings have passed me by and still I am excited about the day, the eats and getting with kith and kin to celebrate family, faith and friends.
For years it was the food for me. Maybe it still is. If I could not have turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy for Thanksgiving dinner, it would not be much of a dinner.
I know many people who take their whole families and go to a place and help out with cooking or serving or washing dishes afterward.
And that is fine, although in my family, it has always been a little more private. For the last years anyway.
Now, back in Grandma Lucke’s day if she heard that someone did not have somewhere to go for Thanksgiving dinner, she would send one of us grandchildren out to pick them up, bring them to her house and let them share what she had prepared. And, by the way, what she had prepared was always enough for forty people even if there were only twenty at the dinner table.
I served many a family member at my table for Thanksgiving too. But I didn’t check the hotel registers to see who might be far from home on this very big day.
I was talking to a rancher on the street the other day and he was saying that they were having prime rib for Thanksgiving as they owed more to the cattle than to some damn turkey. Charlie Russell used to say the same thing. I am just glad we did not start eating eagles as they would really be awful.
Much as I love beef, I will eat it most any other day of the year. But on Thanksgiving or Christmas, it is turkey, thank you!
From me and mine to you and yours, the best Thanksgiving ever!
