I love this time of year, late November. Especially in the city. The leaves in the Park are absolutely beautiful:
Fall is absolutely my favorite time of year for many reasons. But a HUGE reason is because I don’t have to rake leaves.
When I was growing up, the Thanksgiving tradition was for my dad to wake us all up extremely early so we could clean the yard for him. Guests too were required to participate. And it was a large yard with lots of trees. He would let all the trees drop, without raking them up, so he could get us all to just do it once. The day after Thanksgiving my mom would give us each $100 to buy presents, and then drop us off at the mall around the time it opened. We stayed the whole day, with mom arranging to pick us up around 5PM – And we had all our shopping done.
When I went to college dad hired a yard guy to help him out with the leaves. So thankfully that tradition was dead. It was around this time too that mom decided to reconnect with some of her family, by inviting them to Thanksgiving. This started in 1989 and lasted until around 1999 or 2000. And it was during this period that I have the most fond memories.
It was huge, and chaotic, and an absolute blast! For the largest year I believe we had around 45-50 people over, mostly cousins. Mom had a huge kitchen that was literally made for these sorts of gatherings. And tables would be set up in the foyer to handle the overflow from the dining room. We also had an uncle from Orlando who would come up. He liked to fish, a lot, and he would throw most of his catch in the freezer during the year. He would bring up all this fish so that we could have a huge fish-fry in the backyard the day after Thanksgiving.
My parents had a decent sized house, with lots of rooms and spaces for people to sleep. I gave up my bedroom, though, and slept in the RV that dad parked in the driveway – That also gave me a place to hide when the introvert in me could not handle the noisy crowd in the house any longer. Also my grandparents lived on a farm about 5 miles away, so some people could stay out there too. It was a big production.
Mom died in September 1998, and we still had the normal Thanksgiving for a couple years after that. The last big Thanksgiving was 1999, after dad had remarried:
Stepmom was a fine person, and in no way do I hold a grudge for putting a halt to these large gatherings. Most of the cousins there were from my moms side, so it had to be a little tough to entertain them. My dads family did still show up, at first. But after a couple years Thanksgiving had become a small formal dinner, the way stepmoms family preferred. It was around this time that I started hanging out with a cousin here in Atlanta. They invited me to their holidays.
She and her husband live about 3 miles from me, and around 2001 they started their family traditions. At first, they would host Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter dinners. That’s a lot of food prep and house guests, so after a couple years they scaled it back to just Thanksgiving and Easter. With just a couple exceptions I’ve been going there for the last 20 years.
From the outset of their marriage, they knew they did not want to have kids. So their house is set up to entertain adults. What I mean – People with kids might finish out the attic as an en suite master bedroom. They, conversely, have a giant HD 10’x15′ projected television at one end, a mahogany paneled full bar in the middle, and a slate topped pool table at the other end. This is a house for grown-ups, and it has been a fantastic place to enjoy Thanksgiving, sometimes Christmas, Easter, Kentucky Derby, and random and frequent Bring Your Own Meat cookouts.
But, times change and people move on – It was announced at Thanksgiving this year that they will most likely sell their house and move before Thanksgiving 2022. We all knew this was coming – They’ve been discussing their plans for years now. But there is something final about it now.
I too am in a bit of a transition. In recent years, maybe for the last 10 years, I’ve used the week of Thanksgiving as a time to make goodies for friends. It was a lot of work, and for some reason I decided to make a video of me making Ginger Snaps:
I decided after making this video that I was not going to do this anymore – Making goodies that is. Besides, I eat far too much of the cookies and I really want to trim down and put on some muscle mass – Cookies are not in that diet!
Also, 2022 may be a pivotal year for me. We’ll see. I’ve posted about looking at property elsewhere, but I’ve not followed-up with a post on that yet. I’m still mulling options. I’ve set the arbitrary deadline of “mid February” to pull the trigger on some plans.
So that is my update, on the start of the 2021 Holiday Season.
I hope you all have had a great Thanksgiving, and I hope you all enjoy whatever holidays you celebrate next.
#GenX #Retirement #Adventure #GenerationX #Thanksgiving #ThanksgivingTraditions #ThinkingOutLoud
Will's GenX Adventure 