I discovered from my Mom recently that when she was a child, she used to spend celebratory meals like Thanksgiving and Sunday Suppers,
with her Aunt’s family. They lived within the same block in their rural Missouri town. Many people have these sorts of memories.
Where I grew up, we didn’t have any family nearby. So I like to create the family memories for my kids.
Memories of cousins upon cousins and aunts and grandparents piled into a house to feast.
The clan celebrating itself, laughing and enjoying the overfed and captured audience.
Scene of and witness to the uncomfortable squabbles and unsaid shames that are family. Forgiving, accepting, and moving on.
This humanity riddled imperfect holiday gathering is a combined memory of a nation. Every nation has a Thanksgiving, a tradition
that is carried over by generations to the next and lives in their memories of long gone houses and people.
Now the holiday happens in the children’s homes. The same foods are being prepared In their kitchens.
New tales are being made to tell at the table to a new generation of children.
And the patchwork quilts of a family and it’s feasts are both created and shared. The keepers store the Thanksgiving quilt away
to be remembered again. Or to be forgotten.