Ahhh Thanksgiving. That time of year when we are all turkey and company-challenged scrambling to fill our minds with gratitude and of course thankfulness.
As for us, Thanksgiving is now a season that is full of reflection on what once was and perhaps could be again. This is what seasons are all about. Aren’t typical holidays about us striving for literally everything wrapped up into a few hours? When you think about it, that’s a lot to count on.
Love and acceptance are paired with the slip of gossip, politics, too much wine and whining from large and small children… and within a few short hours the side effects of turkey’s tryptophan leaves most adults yawning, falling asleep in the middle of a wild scene of toys and sugar highs. I have personally witnessed this image in my living room. Large men face down on the carpet, children dancing around them, while other adults do cleanup :) asking if anyone wants coffee with their pumkin pie?
Prior to having children one of my favorite Thanksgivings is most literally seared into the memory bank, as it reels with the memory of laughter. Even though both John and I could have been seriously injured, died and/or injured others while burning the house down… (btw, I’d blame mom for all of this. She’s not as perfect as most make her out to be. ha ha!)
The scene is set.
It’s 1986.
Both tired from full-time work, John and Deb head home for the hours-long drive to Deb’s parents, for Thanksgiving dinner.
The other Brits have already arrived, wine is flowing from of the box and the sausage rolls are coming piping hot out of the oven.
Mom has made an exceptional American Thanksgiving Dinner again! Not bad for a Brit who embraces all the American holidays I thought :)
It’s 5 p.m. and time to gather in the dining room.
Dad sits at one head, John at the other. I next to mom and the other Brits across, who by the way have a very large sense of humour.
The candles are lit, more wine is poured, we give thanks for our blessings, via toasts, and dive into the turkey.
The conversation is going well when suddenly Deb dives into her favorite part of the meal. The stuffing. Sidenote: It is called stuffing, because the turkey is stuffed with it. Or at least that’s what I think (excuse the lack of investigation on this one but news sources have been saying it’s not so good to stuff a turkey anymore…).
Que » sudden (and quite unexpected) choking.
As Deb struggles to breath she is seen running to the downstairs bathroom (which was unexpectedly in use) and then as looks of frozen horror overcome those left at the table, (John chasing her), she races up the staircase to the other bathroom, where finally she spits up fragments of bone and blood.
Water streaming from her red face, Deb happily makes her way back to the table as mom, with the look of aghast begins to explain she didn’t think she scooped bone out of the turkey and is very sorry she nearly killed her daughter.
Que » more wine, chatter, the search for bones in the stuffing, (na, let’s skip the stuffing) and silly laughter, with one of the Brits, I’m positive, still snort laughing.
Que » someone asks John to pass the butter.
As John lifts his arm, with that perfect oversized 1980’s pullover sweater on, we are suddenly mortified, and shockingly stunned, to see his right arm go up in a brilliant flame from a candle (next to the butter).
I mean it was as if he was doing a magic show! If only there was an actual printed image of our faces frozen in time during these particular Thanksgiving moments!
Que » the exceptional quickness of blowing out the flames while simultaneously throwing a glass of water on John and all was back to normal.
But not without laughter. So much laughter. Snort laughing. Exhausted tears of laughter. Afterall the flame did improve those mealy pieces on his sweater.
The End.
For those of us who are trying to find the beauty and the laughter in these precious days. For those of us who are struggling or might be alone over the holidays or have family members missing, which can deepen the pain — I am here to say that laughter is the gift we need. I am beginning to laugh again. It’s good to be thankful for moments and great memories of laughter mixed into what we had hoped to be the one to knock it out of the park in a few short hours.
We’ve always been a simple family with simple wishes. We’re not fancy, we don’t have great expections. We were the type of family that found humour in everyday things. I am thankful for all the moments we had at the table, be it regular or holiday. I can still see some of the funniest times at the table, like when our youngest wouldn’t stop standing on his chair. So I stood on mine and with everyone else staring at me, I grinned and que’d them to do the same. No one could hold onto their laughter for very long. I asked our youngest “is this how a normal family eats?” to watch him ever so slowly sink back down in his chair. We were rolling in tears. Or the early days with two young children. Our “picnic bench” dining room table had a broken leg-piece of wood flapping over on my side. I had been petitioning for our first “real” table, to deaf ears, so I reached down under the tablecloth, cracked the dagger-sized wood piece off and lifted it up to show my wide-eyed husband mid-mouthful of dinner. The sound of it crackling, the threat of the wood dagger… his face. He broke down in tears laughing and the following weekend we went to Montgomery Ward department store and he bought me a four-seater table with matching chairs :) It was definitely an Everybody Loves Raymond moment.
I will never do TikTok, but I found this reel below on my Instagram feed. These two young women lost their mom a year ago and they decided to do exactly as she had always told them: Keep striving to move past the hard stuff with laughter. They said their mom would be laughing along with them. Losing their dad when they were young, their mom, suddenly a single mom, found a way to keep them going with laughter. It is honestly hilarious.
Happy Thanksgiving wherever you are :)
Don’t forget to laugh about something…
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Well, Deb, I had double hernia surgery last week, so I'm catching up. This brought a smile to my face. We must remember to GIVE THANKS IN EVERYTHING, FOR THIS IS GOD'S WILL FOR US IN CHRIST JESUS!