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WITH FRIENDS  The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock The painting by Brownscombe. |
A holiday without family
needn't be an unhappy one
of TheColumnists.com
There are times when I really feel like celebrating the joys of friendship and this year one of those times will be Thanksgiving Day.
Throughout my entire life, I've always celebrated Thanksgiving with family and so has my wife. In fact, it's been an amusing thing for us to remember how many times we had to celebrate Thanksgiving with more than one family at a time. Those were the years when her parents and my parents both invited us to join them for Thanksgiving and wouldn't take no for an answer. Fortunately, they lived within a short distance of each other and tended to schedule Thanksgiving dinner at different times of day.
Of course, that meant we had to somehow eat less than we normally wanted to at each venue so we wouldn't explode on the way back to our own home.
But this year things will be different. Both sets of parents are now deceased. My brother and his children live in Nevada. My sister and her daughter live in Texas. Her son lives in California. Two of my wife's sisters live in California and so do most of their children. One niece who lived with us for a few years and has celebrated the holiday with us for the past several years is now living in New Zealand, studying for her doctoral degree in botany. Another of my wife's sisters and her two daughters don't celebrate Thanksgiving for religious reasons--and, if we don't count distant cousins, they're the only other family members now living in Washington state, where my wife and I live.
Yes, we could travel to another state to celebrate the holiday with at least some of the family members, but not this year. We've been invited to celebrate Thanksgiving in Fresno, Calif., with the California branch of the family, but I've decided not to do any long-distance travel this year because I'm taking medication to control a thyroid imbalance and am being monitored closely by my physician until I'm back to normal.
So this is the first Thanksgiving in some time that we won't be seeing any family members. That's a shame because we certainly love our extended family, but it's not exactly a tragedy. The reason it isn't an occasion for sadness is that we have some wonderful friends who this year also will be far from family, so we're all getting together--nine of us--to do Thanksgiving as a special Celebration of Friendship, which I think is kind of in the spirit of the original holiday started by the Pilgrims in 17th century America, isn't it?
Two of our dear friends are from Minnesota, which is where my maternal grandmother came from originally. They live in an adjacent county about an hour's drive away. They have a newborn son who's their pride and joy, so he'll be celebrating his own first Thanksgiving with us. Coming with our friends from Skagit County are their friends, a couple also from Minnesota who recently moved to Washington. We've met them and they're wonderful people. The other couple joining us are from the neighboring community of Birch Bay and are two of the finest people we've ever known.
And heres' the best part--all the guests are bringing homemade dishes to the table and the ladies involved are all world-class cooks, so I know this first Friendship Thanksgiving is going to be a gourmet delight, even if I ruin the turkey.
We made the decision to do Thanksgiving together about a month ago, but shortly after we settled that issue my wife and I were also invited to join a family in nearby Lynden, Washington, for their Thanksgiving. This invitation also springs from friendship--the friendship of my wife and I with a young woman in her 20s who works at the local Inn in our resort commnity near the Canadian border. We have been with her family before for Thanksgiving and it remains one of the warmest, most memorable holidays we've ever known because this is such a remarkably loving family, every family member as generous and thoughtful as our young friend. If we hadn't already committed to our Friends Thanksgiving, that's where we'd be heading on Thursday.
At some point in our festivities Thursday I hope to propose a toast to the friendship shared by the eight grown-up members of our gathering. I think it's rooted in our mutual love of humanity and the goodness that we all appreciate when we find it in fellow members of the human race. Even in a world fraught with chaos and acrimony, I think we collectively believe there's still plenty to be thankful for--and the beautiful little fellow who'll be having his first Thanksgiving with us and the strong bonds of friendship between all of us are right up there at the top of the list.
©2011 by Ron Miller. This column first posted Nov. 21, 2011.
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