Thanksgiving ~ 2011

It's a quiet day here at our house and, truthfully (not that I'm lying unless I make that distinction), it makes me a bit sad.  It's Thanksgiving, but it's not. Hubby, Son and I are the only ones here.  Daughter and her family are having Thanksgiving dinner with a friend.  Sugar is with her mom and family.  It's her first Thanksgiving with divorced parents, which means we don't see her today, either.  My extended family is spread from Arkansas to Texas to central Kansas instead of gathering in our family room as they did the past two or three years.

All of this is especially bittersweet because this is Spice's first Thanksgiving and the traditions have gone to heck in a hand basket this year.  She won't experience the family room turned dining room; the red Christmas tree with name tags attached for the gift draw; the 30 family members oohing and aahing over her; or the furniture-pushed-to-the-walls family photo with her being held by a second cousin on the front row.

No, this Thanksgiving is different.  Not bad, but different.  The three of us started the morning with a nice breakfast of bacon, eggs, hashbrowns and biscuits and then turned our attention to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.  Soon Son was out the door to do some grocery shopping and purchased a few Christmas gifts for Sugar.  Now we're on our respective desk top, lap top and iPhone with a football game providing the white noise.

Daughter, Son-in-law and Spice will be here this evening.  We're going to have turkey and ham sandwiches, broccoli and cauliflower salad, a jalapeno/bacon cheese ball as well as the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving fare of toast, popcorn, pretzels and jellybeans.  We'll munch on these goodies as we watch "Dutch" and our favorite Thanksgiving movie, "Planes, Trains and Automobiles".

No, it's just not Thanksgiving.  Yet.

Sunday my family will gather together, Sugar included, and have our Thanksgiving dinner.  There will be a nice, roasted turkey with all of the trimmings.  Spice will get a taste of sweet potato for the first time and try out those three shiny teeth.  The camera will snap a photo of all of us gathered on the ottomans and maybe Sugar can hold Spice on the front row.  Then it will have been Thanksgiving.