It’s a really big deal in my family, we do not mess around, and it is my Father’s favorite holiday, because turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy is his favorite meal ever.  When I was little it was the day we got to “pretend to be adults” because my mother would serve it on her fancy china, and I would get to set the table with cloth napkins, goblets, and all the other service-ware that was kept year round in the hall china cabinet collecting dust.

Now though, it’s about the food.  It’s about being old enough and having the professional skills to be able to drink 3 “Marti” Bloody Mary’s and not cut my finger off.  More importantly though it is a time to get together with my family and close friends and just appreciate what we have in our lives-to actually give Thanks.

It begins right after Halloween, my mother and I email each other a menu/shopping list to edit and decide what to change from the year before.  Then that gets sent to the other members to see what input they’d like to give.  The Saturday before hand is when it gets exciting.  My father and I (and for the second year in a row, my sister) go grocery shopping.  It usually goes like this.

• 10am, meet at my parents house to take inventory of staples to see if we need to add or cross off anything
• 10:30am head to the gianormous liquor store to load up on libations
• 11am-11:15am cross the street to Costco for certain items on the list, and any thing else my parents need
• 12:30pm or later (’cause the store is PACKED!) take groceries home, and head off to lunch somewhere
• 1:45pm go to King Soopers for the rest of the ingredients, head home to organize.

Of course at this point we’ve forgotten at least one thing, it’s a big list and sometimes things get over looked.  Then the Wednesday before I journey up to the house to do prep work.  Make the Turkey brine, peel potatoes, make pie fillings, cut up crudite, peel my Father’s pearl onions so they are ready to be creamed the next day, finally- set Turkey into pickle bucket and pour over the brine.  Ol’ Tom gets a lid put on him and set out back on my parents porch overnight to keep cold.

Thursday rolls around and I wake up and head back up to my parents house for the big day.  It’s a lot of work, but we enjoy it and at the end of the night we’re usually playing Texas Hold’em around the table, eating pumpkin pie, listening to my parents telling stories of their childhood and reminiscing about our own youths as well.