Plenty to be Thankful for

ByD'Ann Mateer
14 Comments

 

I love, love, love Thanksgiving day, though I often cringe when thinking about all the work involved— the prepping, the cooking, and especially the cleanup! But this year, my thankfulness overflows to the point that I might not even mind all the work. You see, this Thanksgiving is special for two reasons.

First, all of my kids were able to get some part of Thanksgiving week off work and agreed to travel to a somewhat central location. With three kids and their spouses scattered over three states, all with job and school responsibilities and in-law families to consider, it is a real treat that we get to all be together, especially since one daughter-in-law has never spent a Thanksgiving with our family!

The second reason this year is special involves a last and a first, an end and a beginning. This year will be the last time (for many years) that we’ll all come together as only adults. (I’ll give you a minute to think about what that means before spelling it out!)

Yes, you guessed it.

Our son and his wife are expecting!

Our first grandchild arrives in 2019! The end of the adult years comes with the excitement of the beginning of the baby years.

To celebrate this special Thanksgiving, we rented a house on the Texas Coast. It wasn’t an easy place to find! It had to accommodate three married couples and one single and her dog, include a kitchen and dining table big enough for a Thanksgiving feast, and have a living room comfortable for watching football, watching movies and playing games. Once that was booked, we began to plan for all our traditional Thanksgiving food and activities. But behind my excitement, I was a little sad, too, knowing this would be the first Christmas we wouldn’t all be together. Then my daughter suggested we celebrate Christmas while we were there, and my husband christened it our first Thanksmas.

So November has been a mad dash of online and in-store shopping, gathering games and movies and stockings, wrapping gifts and ordering the turkey. My daughter planned our meals, made all the lists, did all the grocery shopping, and will be boss of the kitchen!

Even as you read this, I’m sure we are prepping for tomorrow. We’ll spend Thursday eating turkey and watching football and yes, thanking the Lord for all the ways in which He has blessed us, most especially for this time together and our grandchild. Then Friday morning, Christmas! Everything from stockings to gifts to music to our traditional Christmas treats. The only thing we won’t do together is the Christmas eve candlelight service. (Of course this means my kids will have to forego their traditional Black Friday shopping, though I imagine the computers will all be out when the sales start!) As you can see, we plan to throughly enjoy the roughly 72 hours we will all be in one place. 

We can truly sing with Bing that we have plenty to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. May your celebration be filled with love and laughter, friends and family, joy and blessing.

What does Thanksgiving look like at your house this year?

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Inspired by novelist Eugenia Price, D’Ann’s dream of writing historical fiction with an element of faith began in middle school, though her serious drive toward publication took a bit longer. D’Ann is the author of four historical novels and one novella, as well as a contemporary short stories in a compilation volume. D’Ann and her husband of 30 years can be found in Austin, TX when they aren’t touring historic sites or visiting their grown children.

14 Comments

  1. I was born on Thanksgiving.
    My birthday is tomorrow.
    We are going out to eat because I am not cooking.

  2. How exciting! And how wonderful that you can all be together. It gets more and more rare as the kids get older and everyone gets involved in their own lives…especially if they live far away! Huge congrats on that coming grandchild! SOOOO exciting! Plenty to be thankful for, indeed!

    1. Thanks, Deb! We are definitely thankful for each time it happens, knowing it will get rarer and rarer as the years go on. And it was so fun to get here last night and see our daughter-in-law’s little bump! Definitely made it more real! 🙂

  3. What a wonderful plan! I hope you enjoy a very special Thanksmas! Grandchildren are such a blessing. I know you’ll love this new season of life. Blessings to you this holiday season!

    1. Thanks, Carrie! Change of any kind always makes me a little apprehensive, but I love having friends (like you!) to encourage me for the season ahead! Happy Thanksgiving!

  5. Thanks for sharing your plans. Your family time sounds wonderful!
    Thanksgiving for us is a gathering of adult orphans ( couples and singles with families far away). We started this tradition in the 1970’s when we were newly married and didn’t want to think of a lifetime of always crashing other families parties. This has been a lovely holiday which our children participated in while they lived at home. The families involved became close and the children grew up together as if they were cousins. Several of the families had children move away to work so we are once again all adults.

  6. Thanksgiving looks very different at our house this year. My 17 year old daughter had her wisdom teeth removed the day before Thanksgiving. No, it wasn’t cruel and unusual punishment, we chose that day so she has the long weekend to recover before going back to school on Monday. Fortunately, one of my brothers was unable to be in town on Thanksgiving Day, so my side of the family gathered together the Saturday before Thanksgiving and celebrated with the traditional dinner. The night before her surgery, her FFA club held a harvest party for families with all the fixin’s of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. So, she got 2 Thanksgivings before the actual day. Thanksgiving day my older daughter made a huge pot of soup, my husband and I went for a long walk and stopped to get a fancy coffee, my son came over and we all went to a movie (The Grinch – it was really good) and my 17 year old got lots of time to relax in the recliner and eat mashed potatoes and ice cream. Definitely not a traditional Thanksgiving but still a special day spent with family.

    1. I love that you rearranged things to make it easier on your daughter. And it sounds like you had a lovely, relaxing Thanksgiving day! Hope your daughter recovers quickly!

  7. Like you, we are a family transitioning into something different. While our son and his girlfriend made it to IL for Thanksgiving, they will spend Christmas in Boston with her family, while my daughter keeps popping up to WI to visit her beau. Our little family of four is starting to grow and change. It’s bittersweet, no? I love that you decided to blend the two holidays while you were together, and congrats on the grandbaby-to-come!

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