A place for friends.
The holidays are a difficult time for me. Most of my adult holidays have been spent alone or as the awkward guest in another family’s family-time. Even as a child it was difficult. I was the step-kid and often treated as a guest at my mother’s husband’s family get together…Oy! How the holidays sucked.
I thought it would be easier to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas when I remarried. I thought having a ‘family’ would change things, would change me, but His family is in Wisconsin and it’s just the three of us-often only two of us. Making a big turkey dinner with all of the trimmings is a lot of work and a lot of food for a very small family.
As I thought about my feelings, and the 30+ years of emotional baggage I carry around with me this time of year, my thoughts turned to a familiar saying on fMh:
It’s good to know that I’m not the only one that feels this way.
And then I remembered the single mother, the widow, the never married, the newly married couple, the childless, the individuals who have been discarded by their biological family and anyone that feels alone this time of year, and I though about how, if I could open my heart and home to comfort those people during this time, I would have the ambition and desire to celebrate.
I’m not saying that my family isn’t worthy of celebration but when two thirds of my family isn’t the celebratin’ type, it takes all the fun out of all the work.
So, to everyone who doesn’t have a big family get-together awaiting them tomorrow, know that if my home was the center of the fMh universe you would be welcomed here and we’d cook and burn food and make the house smell like heaven. We’d talk and cry and laugh at everything that came to our minds. We’d watch some football and most definitely some hockey. We’d break bread and stuff ourselves silly until we couldn’t stand to look at another slice of pumpkin pie and then when we’re full and content and satisfied, we’d part ways and say to each other : until we meet again friend.
My thoughts are with you.
Mfranti… you are an amazing woman and one I would gladly break bread with. I can smell, and hear, and taste it all! What a great party that would be!
Comment by Sunshine — November 25, 2009 @ 2:53 pm
beautiful, as always.
Comment by Enna — November 25, 2009 @ 3:00 pm
Beautiful. Thank you.
Comment by Keri Brooks — November 25, 2009 @ 3:11 pm
You are fantastic.
Comment by Eris — November 25, 2009 @ 3:14 pm
Thank you! I’ll be cooking just for two this year, but we have found joy in calm and quiet holidays.
Comment by kew — November 25, 2009 @ 3:14 pm
Thank you, mfranti. You nailed it.
Comment by Ardis Parshall — November 25, 2009 @ 3:35 pm
Wonderful, Mel. I’m glad to be your friend (even if I’m a little too far away to come over for turkey).
Comment by Kaimi — November 25, 2009 @ 3:36 pm
This sounds wonderful, mfranti. Thanks for this post. I wish there weren’t so much geography between us all.
Comment by Ziff — November 25, 2009 @ 4:15 pm
Hockey?
Pumpkin pie?
I’m THERE.
Comment by xenologue — November 25, 2009 @ 6:04 pm
thanks for the nice comments all.
Ardis! seeing you comment here on my thread made my day.
xenolouge, are you in salt lake?
Comment by mfranti — November 25, 2009 @ 6:11 pm
mfranti>
Sigh. No. I live in Canada. I was just dreamin’.
Actually T-giving will be nice here; my husband is with me and we have a few more days together before he has to go home to TX.
Comment by xenologue — November 25, 2009 @ 6:14 pm
Wish you were here, m.
Comment by ECS — November 25, 2009 @ 6:50 pm
Come north a few miles and join us next year! If you can handle chaos you would fit right in. This year dh and I are visiting family in another state and I’m missing my own kids terribly.
Comment by numi — November 25, 2009 @ 7:07 pm
This post brings tears to my eyes. Beautiful!
Comment by EmilyCC — November 25, 2009 @ 7:26 pm
Thanks, m. I’m not the “holiday type,” probably for a lot of the reasons you mention in your post. I work my way through it for my family, but it’s never fun or easy. Thanks for the warm, cheering thought.
Comment by Lorian — November 25, 2009 @ 7:27 pm
Geez. With family scattered from Mexico to Germany, we will be celebrating alone tomorrow. It is hard. But thankfully, I have this post to get me all teary-eyed thinking of THE perfect Thanksgiving, with all together and none missing.
Thanks for this…
Comment by Lupita — November 25, 2009 @ 7:32 pm
While I was reading your post, m., I thought of Ardis eating her tuna sandwich alone on T-day. I’m glad she commented as well.
One year on my mission an older woman invited us for T-day. She basically had opened her house to all the people who didn’t have a family of their own to celebrate with. There were about 8 of us who showed up; just an odd assortment of folk who for whatever reason happened to be alone.
It was probably the most enjoyable Thanksgiving of my entire life.
Comment by Kevin Barney — November 25, 2009 @ 7:59 pm
Just lovely …
When I was growing up in Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Alaska, Thanksgiving was a day to invite missionaries, foreign students and colleagues of my dad, and others far from home (our extended family was mostly still in Utah so we were “alone” like that.) I’ve tried to keep that tradition. It just ain’t Thanksgiving to me if you don’t get some Chinese or Indian friends in the room. A place for friends is what it’s all about.
Comment by Ana — November 25, 2009 @ 8:09 pm
Thank you so much for this. I really needed to read this post.
Comment by moksha — November 25, 2009 @ 8:30 pm
I love this post. It is nice to know that not everyone “has it all” and that I am not the only one without a large, happy family to celebrate with on Thanksgiving.
Comment by Sara — November 25, 2009 @ 10:16 pm
Sounds great. If you ever want to come down to Zion National Park, you can have Thanksgiving with us (resort does all the cooking!)
Comment by StillConfused — November 25, 2009 @ 10:19 pm
Happy Thanksgiving. We never have big productions; just family that happens to be close by and the odd grad student with no place to go. In 1997, when I was an undergrad with no place to go for Thanksgiving, one of my friends invited me to his brother’s house with a few other turkey day orphans. We got married the next summer. We have so much to be thankful for. It’s even better if we can share our home and our meal with someone else.
Comment by reader Rachel — November 25, 2009 @ 10:40 pm
This post raises interesting feelings of inadequacy in me. I so want to be the person who opens my home to anyone who needs a home on Thanksgiving. It is one of my heart’s desires, and yet my flesh is weak. Last Thanksgiving, after a year of DH in the Bishopric, and him leaving the next morning for a scout campout, I just didn’t want to see ANYONE else on Thanksgiving. We hunkered down at home. This year, we’re meeting with a large group of friends at the church. But, someday, I hope to be strong enough and capable enough to open my home to everyone.
Comment by Stephanie — November 25, 2009 @ 10:42 pm
Stephanie, you have a lot of your own gifts
Comment by Enna — November 25, 2009 @ 11:08 pm
Oh, Ardis,
the house is small and often there’s dust on the piano but it’s close to downtown and I could pick you up.
you have my email.
my 16 year old is making dinner and i’m sure she wouldn’t mind having another person to try her famous mashed potatoes.
Comment by mfranti — November 26, 2009 @ 12:30 am
STOP! you have several children and a new baby. There’s no shame in wanting to take the holiday off.
Comment by mfranti — November 26, 2009 @ 12:38 am
xenologue and I had Canadian Thanksgiving last month. We’re thankful for free health care, haw haw haw.
My first American Thanksgiving was on the mission. Three different houses; a lunch, a dinner, and deer for a snack in the evening. The best part about it was that it was a full day P-Day.
Comment by Cross — November 26, 2009 @ 12:43 am
oh sure, rub your affordable universal health care coverage in our faces.
(oh, a must see frontline: sick in america)
Comment by mfranti — November 26, 2009 @ 12:56 am
Loverly.
Comment by m&m — November 26, 2009 @ 2:13 am
This is so beautiful! This is what I’m doing next year! This year my family has decided to have Thanksgiving at a restaurant near mom’s place.
Comment by Tatiana — November 26, 2009 @ 2:59 am
Stephanie, offering your husband to the ward all year is quite a gift. don’t underestimate that just because mel’s gift is different.
Mel, awesome. It will be “just the ten of us” this year. We talked to quite a few people about coming over but none panned out.
We don’t see my husband much either with teaching and coaching though so we have a weekend packed with family time. Going to the zoo on black and white striped friday.
Comment by britt — November 26, 2009 @ 9:38 am
Cross,
I actually didn’t really get Thanksgiving. I use the holiday to visit my husband in the states, and he uses his Thanksgiving to visit me in Canada. Either way, we miss out on the usual trappings.
But YEAH for our health care
Comment by xenologue — November 26, 2009 @ 11:54 am
We would DEFINITELY be watching some hockey, yes. Preferably some hottie Scanners.
Comment by TheFaithfulDissident — November 26, 2009 @ 1:40 pm
FD,
good to see you!
and ohhhh hottie scanners….you know i married one and he plays hockey too. i got lucky.
Comment by mfranti — November 26, 2009 @ 2:23 pm
Oh Mfranti,being a Brit,we don’t do T day,but I really wish i could curl up at your house.sounds like my kind of place to be,as long as you could find me a quiet corner some where.I’ll use this image as my safe place when I’m hurting,if I may.
Thanks for sharing.For so many years,even now I have my own small family,I have hurt for the big rowdy times that I felt I was missing out on.I know it has all been about exclusion from our own extended family,and my mother’s exclusion from her birth family.But I still feel it.So good to know I am not alone in that feeling.
Comment by wayfarer — November 26, 2009 @ 5:40 pm
Thank you so much, mfranti.
Your post has cheered this reader who definitely ‘feels alone this time of year’.
Bless you, and warm wishes to everyone here!
Comment by SLK in SF — November 26, 2009 @ 8:41 pm
How many times I have read this blog and thought “it’s good to know I am not the only one who feels this way”. And once again your words bring me to that place. I did thanks with the in laws we have not spoken with in over 3 HARD years. It was a good first step, but lonely in a group of people. I hope you day was great!
Comment by kandi and salt — November 26, 2009 @ 11:21 pm
M- I know. I really do know. Even after all these years, there is a gut reaction to the holidays that I cannot suppress. I have spent my children’s lifetimes giving them holidays that don’t look or feel anything like my own experiences of them.
They have healed me in some ways, and restored the joy that should be there, to some extent. But for me, there is always that wall…I put up my guard and brace for the worst…even if it’s not coming, my reflexive reaction is to hunker down. My connection with Christ at this season, has always been the intense gratitude in his helping me endure it, frankly.
I seriously think it is a form of PTSD. That’s how I deal with it. Sending huge hugs to you, with a boat- load of understanding.
Comment by Kimberly — November 27, 2009 @ 10:06 am
And the gift that my children do not know or comprehend these feelings brings me great comfort.
Comment by Kimberly — November 27, 2009 @ 10:08 am
Another Thanksgiving thought I happened to come across to day:
“”"”
Grace Before Water
It is lovely, from time to time, to have a glimpse of the meaning of old courtesies of Africa. A group of youngsters had come to our mission on a Saturday morning to ask for a football. They had started early, and it was hot and they were thirsty; so I gave them saw water.
As each one took the cup he went down on one knee and drank it, kneeling. I asked, “Is it your custom to kneel when you drink water?” Their leader replied, “Nidiyo! Kwa Shukrani” (Yes - it is thanksgiving.) For in their land, water is life; something for which to say fervent grace.
- Trevor Huddleston, Bishop of Massai
Guideposts magazine, Nov. 1966
“”"”"”
While we wrestle with the trials of life, I hope we pause to be grateful for the simple things we normally take for granted.
things we
Comment by Glenn Smith — December 5, 2009 @ 6:34 pm