Giving Thanks Part Deux

This entry is primarily for my family in Bend, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Minneapolis but some of you may enjoy it as well.

Thanksgiving this year was great fun. Aunt Lucy joined us as well as her granddaughter (and my 2nd cousin) Heidi and Heidi’s Fiancé Doug. It was great to catch up with them and I really enjoyed getting to know Doug. He’s a very bright and funny guy and they seem very good together. Stu and Katharine’s friend Scott was a great addition and has a new BFF in my Pops. They were inseparable.

Our family is so entertaining. We have a lot of characters. Uncle Skip couldn’t make it but, as is becoming a new tradition, he sent along a letter from his expansive archives to be read during dinner. Last year it was a letter to the CEO of Home Depot, this year it was a letter he wrote back in 1999 to a charity that kept soliciting from our Grandfather. Now, I pride myself on being the comedian of the family, but Skip’s complaint letters to CEO’s are pricelessly funny. I hope to be able to post it here soon. Perhaps I will get the audio of the Kung Fu Fingerbook version of Wizard of Oz posted on the blog at some point too. We can then all be inappropriate together again.

Aunt Lucy also read a poem she wrote long ago. I know that I’m not alone in thinking of Aunt Lucy like a Grandmother to us as well as an Aunt. I was pretty young when my Grandmother Elsie died. I have very few memories of her. Aunt Lucy was there for all of us and I treasure her with a very special place in my heart. She has lived a tremendous life full of adventure, spirit, wit and laughter. We all should be so lucky.

There was great food. Beer. Cocktails. Skeezy cheeses. Wine. Desserts and a big finish with Brandy Alexanders. A new tradition Stu started last year. Cousins Katharine and Stu really put on a great party. Mr Twister, the custom built rotisserie that travels the roads with Stu, was used for the big bird. It’s really enjoyable to see my generation start to make their mark on our holidays without losing any of the traditions that have come before.

As always the conversations veered every which way and all at once. A vast highway of opinions and declarations and laughter and stories. I’m quite impressed when guests like Scott and Doug can jump into the fray and play along. They performed admirably.

As cousin Stu helped Aunt Lucy into the car to leave he thanked her for reading the poem and she replied, “It was a Hell of a Poem.” He smiled and she pulled him in closer and declared, “And it was a HELL of a party!”

It certainly was.