I completed my “to do list” for Thursday containing my Thanksgiving’s Day Contributions:
1) Grandma’s secret meat stuffing (I’ll take the recipe to the grave) 2) Brownies 3) Ice box Pie (Chocolate pudding in a graham cracker crust) 4) Home made cranberry sauce
I am so grateful for the abundance in our lives and I am actually anticipating the “over stuffed” feeling.
Do you know the feeling? The turkey- tryptophan induced sleepy feeling brought on along with the over indulgence of mashed potatoes and all the fixings, especially the secret meat stuffing!
But most of all I am anticipating being with my family. My not so “normal” family who finds joy in each other’s crazy antics. Last year my sister brought the long skinny balloons that you blow up with a straw and when released fly crazy all over. We laughed so hard that we were breathless as each and every one of us held our balloon and released it simultaneously causing group chaos.
That memory is one of our families’ favorite!
After dinner we all comb through the “Black Friday” flyers and plan our strategy for hitting the sales at 4:00 O’clock in the morning.
We do so with a mission, we abstain from purchasing each other gifts, or are suppose to, to create a Christmas for a woman and her family transitioning from the local women’s shelter to her own home. Most of the time these families are victim of spousal abuse and leave their homes with the clothes they have on their backs. So, our intention is to outfit their household and we “charge” out at 4:00 o’clock in the morning with list in hands to do so.
We divide the list up taking our targeted items and off we go, last year my sister and I had the kitchen and the items needed which was so much fun, I’m hoping for the same assignment this year too.
But, it is reading the list of items that the children request which always brings me to tears; socks, PJ’s and crayons, is what they ask for and most frequently they request that we buy things for the other family members not them.
Crayons, socks, PJ’S aren’t those items just a given in a person’s live?
It makes me overly grateful for that overstuffed feeling brought on from the amazing thanksgiving dinner and to be honest a bit embarrassed about the “overstuffed feeling” in the other parts of my life.
So, when a life’s journey brings disappointment, struggle and hardship the comparison to another seems to have a way of snapping yourself out of the “why” me story playing in ones head.
I am extremely blessed even when life brings to me another learning lesson, one that seems insurmountable, because it really is the stuff that helps you cherish the “overstuffed” moments that can sometimes be forgotten.
So for this Thanksgiving I wish you a wonderful turkey nap! God Bless You. Kristen
