November 2019
What Thanksgiving Means to me
By: Faith Crosby
Catching up, eating, arguing, laughing; the cycle my family goes through on Thanksgiving Day. The national holiday dedicated to spending time with family, stuffing your face, and having typical debates. My family isn’t unusually large. We only invite over my immediate aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents to our house for the holiday, which amounts to about 20 people a year. Since my parents host the dinner, the holiday starts the day before, when we begin the process of scrubbing the house clean as if a family of four never resided there. My dad, brother and I sweep, vacuum, mop, wash, polish, dust any and everything that the eye can see. My mom restlessly prepares her various meals, beginning the long process of cooking black eyed peas and collard greens, and prepping all of the ingredients of anything else that can be made the morning of. The unwavering tradition of the night before Thanksgiving is the Christmas music that rings through the house. All of my family under one roof after being separated for the last 3 months due to college. We catch up and reminisce, going through our early years to now; we highlight every great memory together and emphasize what we wish we could do again. Somehow, even though we go through this every year, we still seem to find new revelations and conversation topics. The morning of Thanksgiving, after finishing some cleaning, and bothering our mom as she finishes off the various dishes, it’s finally time for our family to arrive. Everyone arrives in the same order, my grandmother first, then my dad’s youngest sister’s family, then my mom’s brother, and finally my dad’s eldest sister’s family. After lots of anticipation and annoyance that dinner is starting late, we form a circle around the dinner table, speak of what we are thankful for, and pray over the food. We separate the tables between kids (which somehow now consisted of three college students) and adults, and then begin to pass dishes. After a pleasant silence that signals our enjoyment, conversations start to ring.
“How’s college?” “How’s the new job?” “How’s that boyfriend/girlfriend of yours?”
Eventually, the conversation cascades towards our differing political opinions. Tensions rise at the same rate as voices, and suddenly, my grandmother cracks a joke about our bickering and we are back to our lighthearted, regularly scheduled Thanksgiving conversations. Sooner or later, we check our clocks and realize that it has gotten late and it is time to wrap up. When I say wrap up, I mean talk for another hour while we simultaneously make styrofoam to-go boxes and gather coats. The night ends with my mom, brother, dad and I discussing another successful Thanksgiving and going through our personal highlights of the evening.
Thanksgiving: a time of intimate fellowship where my family catches up as if we haven’t seen each other since the Thanksgiving before. A time of embracing disagreements and finding a way to laugh them off in the end. A time of reuniting with those who I haven’t seen since I went off to school. A time of good food, good laughs, good advice, and good dialogue. Thanksgiving to me is nothing short of a good time.