Thanksgiving 2018

I don't make a turkey for Thanksgiving.  I gave it up years ago. The "holiday" has completely changed for me over the years and lost it's meaning.  I used to cook for a lot of people.  My husband would invite friends over that didn't have family in the area and we would have the best of times just sharing, eating, and laughing. Then those people made families of their own or moved on and it was just us.

I would still make turkey and we would look at sales ads and plan our Black Friday shopping. There was always too much food and eventually, we just stopped eating the turkey.  We're not huge turkey fans so when there was too much of it, it just went to waste. Stores started opening earlier and now some stores open on Thanksgiving which takes some of the magic away. So I gave up, literally.  That was until this year.

My children are older with my youngest being 15 and my oldest being 24.  I changed out turkey for tamales for a few years since I had the whole day but then I literally spent the whole day in the kitchen.  Tamales take a long time to prepare and by the end of the evening I was exhausted and worn out. There was no family time, no dinner time, just me in the kitchen making tamales.

This year, I made tamales this past weekend with a group of friends so my days would be free. I was looking forward to the days off to clean the house and get rid of things that no longer serve us.  I will not be Black Friday shopping this year and am 100% okay with that. Black Friday for me has become a day of sheer chaos that makes people crazy to spend money they don't have to impress people they don't like. It has made Christmas more about stuff and less about family. 

Today I took my 19 year old son out shopping so we could get some pizzas to cook tomorrow. He asked, "Why not turkey?" Well, I had no intentions of cooking turkey since no one eats it.  I told him we could check and see if a local restaurant would be open and we could go out to eat or we could just spend the money and buy everything we would need to make a thanksgiving meal.  And that is exactly what we did.

Tomorrow, I will prepare a tradition Thanksgiving meal for our household. My son and I will make chocolate chip cookies as well.  And we will have a big dinner as a family.  I will spend the day preparing the meal and baking with my son.  There will likely be no house cleaning either as all the kids will be here with me and my husband.

That's what is the most important about tomorrow; family.  Give thanks for those that are near and dear to you. Give thanks for the time you get to spend with them as all time is borrowed and no one is ever quite sure when it will run out.