Happy Thanksgiving

Getting ready for Thanksgiving Day is not so easy when you work all day Wednesday and have to work again on Friday.

I am finding I cannot any longer just do it all!!!!!!!!!

That old song, I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, and

never let him forget he is a man, well, I guess I am a little too frayed at the edges to do it all any more.

I need help!!!  Yes, I have admitted it now.

So where does this help come from? And when?

Let me tell you, yesterday my grandson who is now 20 called to ask if I am having Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. Well, where did this question come from?  I have had the entire extended family at my house for over 20 years now. Since Mom got past doing it. Since she sold her home and moved to a smaller one in town that did not have enough room for all of us. There are 4 daughters in  family including me. All with children and now grandchildren.

I could not believe though that he had not just assumed as he had in all past years that it would be at my house of course.  He had been thus far to 19 Thanksgiving Dinners at my house.

I asked him did he forget this. He said I didn't get an invitation. I said I do not , nor have ever sent out invitations to Thanksgiving Dinner.  Family just know this. He said ok and he was asking because a friend had invited him if he had no where to go.  Strange. My motherly mind started working overtime here and I wondered is this friend female?  I would not ask this though but just said see you Thanksgiving and bring a guest if you like.

This year I am not quite up to it though.  All other years I have prepared  most of the meal.  One sister brings her specialities, homemade yeast rolls which I dearly love and are from my Mom's recipe.  Oh course she would be a good cook since she majored in cooking in college.  Well, almost majored in it since her original ambition was to become a home economics teacher.  She did not know this was a dying breed of teacher and when graduated there were no positions available so she went to work for Immigration instead.

But I mostly made this meal for my family.  It was my gift to them.  Each year we all scatter for Christmas to our individual homes so grands can come there and play with their gifts without the mix with cousins and so on.

By this time I would have prepared all my pies.  NO I have not done so yet.  That is on the agenda for tonight.

By now I should have washed the Reynolds Spode China which I love for Thanksgiving dinner and especially since my maiden name was Reynolds, this is why I collected this china and enough for all Reynolds clan to sit down together with the same china. Yes, I have a ton of it.It is wonderful for this holiday since the colors are all in fall colors.

This is the one time of the year many of the younger ones actually eat at a proper table with china, sterling and crystal on tablecloth and with cloth napkins. Do I think this is something they should be required to do?  No, I am no snob.  I have always liked to expose my kids to things that were good for them and from the past. This is the old

history lover in me coming out.

Here is a picture of my family at Thanksgiving after all the other family had left.

So for this year, I am on my own preparing the dinner with a little help from others.

James is always a good sport and helper in the kitchen. He is always smiling too.

I am thankful for him especially.

When we sit down together, although not at one table but in close proximity to each other on Thanksgiving Day we will all bow first to give thanks to our God without Whom none of this year's successes and accomplishments would be possible.

Blessings to you on this Thanksgiving.

Lois