Thanks for Much

By LC Van Savage

Well, it’s all over, Thanksgiving that is. Where did you go? With whom did you spend that ubiquitous Thursday? Did you spend time before and after that day in a painting of traffic? Did you watch football? Did you do the cooking? Did your family help doing that and better yet, did they help with the clean-up? Did you spend quality time with that loathsome relative no one will go near, and did you make a strong effort to make him/her feel welcome and loved? Were your endeavors appreciated, or did he/she say "get me a drink, a double, and then get outta my face, Charlie," and your name is Yvonne?

Did you get mixed up this year and think that Thanksgiving was the last Thursday of this month which would have been November 29th? I sure did. But it wasn’t. It was on November 22nd this year. All my life I’ve thought Thanksgiving was the last Thursday in November, but apparently I’ve been wrong for lo these 6 + decades. (Anybody out there know what "lo" means?)

Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November, not the last. Therefore it appears that this is the first November in the history of time, or at least since the month November was invented, that there were five Thursdays in it. I don’t remember there ever being 5 November Thursdays before this year. Do you?

No wonder we all got it so mixed up. It’s a good thing we all caught it in time this year, or all our intellectual, savvy family members who are with-it enough to know Thanksgiving is always the 4th Thursday in November, not the last, would have arrived on that 4th Thursday while the hosts thought it was the last Thursday. If you can understand what I just wrote, then think of how upsetting it would have been had the Hungry Hordes showed up a week early! Can you imagine? The beds not ready, not enough toilet paper in the cabinet, the succotash not made, the bathrooms growing mold orchards, the Mrs. Smith’s pumpkin pies not yet transferred into old family pie tins and the boxes burned, and the turkey hard as plate steel in the freezer. Very bad for both hosts and arrivees.

You like cranberry sauce? Me too, but not the kind filled with stuff, or the whole berries. That’s bitter to me. Ugh. I like it jellied, straight from the can, with the shape of the can still showing, and I get dibs on being the first to cut into it. That’s as much fun and being the first to stab a knife into a brand-new jar of peanut butter, right? Or yogurt. Yeah. Hey, you get your fun where you can in life, and for me, some my best memories are of sticking cutlery into virginal containers of unblemished foodstuffs.

Now don’t say "she’s gotta get out more." I’ve been to Vegas and Paris and Acapulco and even once to Canada. I’ve been around. I’ve seen the good times and bad, the wild times and tame. And yet you and I both know that nothing much compares to the thrill of plunging a big spoon into an unsullied bowl of Jello, or the like.

I have that to be thankful for. I have everything to be thankful for. I am blessed to still have my long-suffering, good husband "Mongo," we have 3 sons we really like, they’re married to 3 women we really like and they’ve graced us with 3 - 3/4 grandchildren we really, really like! We take nothing for granted. Nothing. We are at all times very, very thankful.

I spent the holiday with my dear family on the last Thursday of November this year, and it was good. Sublime. Even better than being first to cut into new yogurt, peanut butter, Jello or Thanksgiving canned/jellied cranberry sauce.