30 Days of Thanksgiving - Day 22 - Sweet Thanksgiving Memories

For more than a decade now we've been celebrating Thanksgiving and kicking off the Christmas season in Kansas City. The tradition started when our youngest daughter and her husband married in 2008. 🦃💗🎄

The first few years we celebrated at their apartment in Claycomo, then at the new apartment in Gladstone. Over the years different friends and family members have joined us for the annual celebration and a lot of great memories have been made.

Last year we did what our daughter deemed as the "extreme church takeover" when friends and family congregated and ate Thanksgiving dinner together at the church that our son-in-law pastors. It was the first year that our oldest daughter and her family had been able to join us. It was such a joy listening to my daughters engage in sister-talk in the kitchen, while the grandlittles chattered away in the background and the fun-in-laws cracked jokes making the whole crowd roar. 

This year we're celebrating Thanksgiving in new place. After a decade of living in an apartment, our daughter and son-in-law were finally able to purchase their own home over the summer and we are thrilled to be celebrating their first Thanksgiving in their new home. 🏡

As I made the homemade dressing this morning, my daughter's eyes welled up with tears. "Always reminds me of Grandma," she said. 

"I know," I replied.

My whole life...no matter where the Thanksgiving feast was to be held...it was my mother that was always asked to bring the dressing, because, of all the dressing recipes in the world, hers was the best! The funny thing is, there was (and still is) no recipe! There's an art to making Mom's dressing and, someday, the the task of putting it together will fall on another, but, for now, the task falls on me. Mom's been gone now these past fourteen Thanksgivings.

I remember well the first Thanksgiving that I  was to be in charge of making the dressing. I just knew that I couldn't do it...not as well as Mom could anyway. I remember calling her and her walking me through the steps over the phone. I realized a couple of years ago that, even now, as I'm making the dressing, I am replaying that phone call over again in my head as I still follow Mom's directions to a tee. In doing so, the dressing turns out every big as good as hers ever was. Well...almost! 

After the dressing was made and put in the oven to bake, I went upstairs to shower and dress...and my mind started wandering. Once again I started thinking back over the years to when my own children were young and my parents and mother-in-law were regular guests at our annual Thanksgiving table. As much as I love my family now, I still miss those days when my own children were small and we were all safely together under one roof.

Further back than that, I thought about the days when my cousins and I were the littles gathered at Grandpa and Grandma's with our parents...collapsing into fits of giggles at the antics of one of our crazy aunts or uncles. It's amazing how fast time really flies.

As my heart and mind wander over the years, people and places flash through my memory...my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, old friends, church friends, people that we've shared meals with over the past 23 years in ministry, and new friends that we've made and shared the holiday with since coming to Amanda and Phillip's over the past decade. Many of them are gone now, but what a blessing they have all been! 💗

As time moves on and seasons change, people come and go in our lives and sweet memories are made along the way. All is woven into a beautiful tapestry called life and, in these early hours of Thanksgiving Day 2018, I am truly thankful for all of the blessings that the Lord has brought into mine.

I'd like to take the opportunity now to wish each and every one of you here a Happy Thanksgiving! No matter what your situation or season in life, look for God's blessings, because they're there. The little moments in life today will be the sweet memories and threads in your own tapestry tomorrow. Embrace them!

May God's richest blessings be yours today and always!

Until next time,

~Rebecca

Recent and related posts that you might enjoy reading...

30 Days of Thanksgiving - Day 21 - The Opportunity To Spend Time With Our DD and SIL

30 Days of Thanksgiving - Day 20 - The Seasons

Happy Homemaker Monday - November 19, 2018

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