Thankfulness

This time of year makes me do three things, gripe about the cold weather and count my blessings.  We have a winter storm warning out for tonight and tomorrow – the high tomorrow is supposed to reach a whopping 10 degrees with a low of 3 or less.  I’ve got lots to gripe about, no doubt!  BUT, when I think of blessings, actually there are too many to count. The third thing?      I’ve been thinking about Thanksgivings past.  Here are some highlights:

I remember the Thanksgiving when…

• I was pretty young, and my sisters and I were cleaning up the kitchen.  My sister Nancy rolled the tablecloth carefully up from the table and handed it to me, asking me to shake it.  Now remember, I was young.  I was clueless.  SO, not really understanding why she made such a big deal out of rolling it up, I unfurled it, resplendent with all its crumbs and food, and shook it – right there in the kitchen.  I didn’t understand that she meant “go outside and shake off the crumbs”… This memory has been a family story – Linda and Nancy remind me of it often.  And we laugh.
• One year my Dad and I went to South Dakota and spent Thanksgiving with his side of the family.  My parents were from Parkston, South Dakota, and most of his loud, rambunctious siblings and their many children still lived in the area.  That Thanksgiving was wonderful – great food and lots of cousins, laughter, and beer. (Not for me! But with a maiden name like Gukeisen, you can be assured that my German heritage obligated the family to loud voices and flowing beer.)
• Another year, I took leave from the Navy to fly home from California to spend Thanksgiving with my parents.  A huge blizzard swept in and closed all roads.  Technically AWOL because of cancelled flights, I eventually took a Greyhound Bus, following a snowplow nearly all the way to Denver and the airport.  I spent the night at Stapleton International, sleeping on the floor, then grabbed a standby flight to San Fransisco.  It was a great adventure.
• My first married Thanksgiving found me in Spain, cooking my first turkey in a tiny butane-powered oven.  Even though I forgot to take the neck – in its paper wrapping – out of the neck cavity – the turkey was good.
• Many years later, in 1993, our family spent Thanksgiving Day driving from California where we lived to Wyoming.  It was an unplanned and heartbreaking trip that began when Nancy called with the news that my mom had died suddenly and unexpectedly.  Mom always cooked her turkey the day before,  so the turkey we ate that year – after her funeral –  she cooked.
• The next year, to keep from being sad, Karl, Hillary, Sam and I took our camper from our home in Sacramento and went to the ocean.  We camped at MacKerricher State Park at Fort Bragg.  We cooked a turkey in our camper (the oven was about the size of mine in Spain, and I remembered to remove the neck!), then spent the day playing in the tide pools and watching whales migrate north. I laugh when I recall Hillary’s face when she was temporarily caught stranded on a rock as the tide was rushing in.  A bittersweet day of remembering how much my mom loved the ocean.
• Later after the kids had all grown up and we’d moved back to Wyoming, we hosted Thanksgiving for most of Karl’s siblings plus friends and my sister Nancy  at our new country home.  Beautiful family moments…
• Last year, we drove to Kansas to spend the day in Hillary’s lovely home.  She is such a great hostess and an excellent cook. I think the turkey was the best I’ve ever eaten.  However, the creme brulee she makes was and is always the best.
• This year, we will go to Karl’s sister’s filled with gratitude for her kind invitation and ready to make new memories.

Wherever you are and however you are celebrating this day of thanks – I wish you joy and gratitude and good memories.