We're heading into the ThanksgivingChristmasNewYears whirl. Winter seems to have shown up this week unexpectedly with temperatures in the teens but no real snow yet.
When I was growing up, Thanksgiving was the start of a huge social season. My parents used to host a big holiday party in mid-December and we started cooking and preparing the Friday after Thanksgiving. There was a huge list of recipes to prepare (mock wild boar, meatballs/spaghetti sauce, marinated mushrooms, braunschweiger balls with paprika, etc), silver to polish, linens to iron, alcohol to buy. I don't really remember the parties but I do remember the cooking and cleaning.
We had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner (usually for just the immediate family) and I remember learning to cook the whole thing when I was 13 or 14. I thought this was really an honor but my mom was really the smart one. She delegated the whole meal to me and I gladly took it on. I think I cooked Thanksgiving dinner every year until I went to college.
I remember doing a huge dinner in 1988 when my sister, Jeannine, got married Thanksgiving weekend. I'm not sure how I crammed a 30-pound bird into the oven at the townhouse but I did. I think we had around 25 people (many out-of-towners who came for the wedding).
Somewhere along the way, Thanksgiving shifted to the Friday after. We usually celebrated with my ex-husband Dave's oldest sister and her family. Our niece spent Thursday with her mom and Friday with the step-family so we moved the date to keep her part of our family tradition. Even after she moved to college, Friday was still the day for the feast. It gave us an extra day to shop, cook, clean and relax and allowed us to include folks who had other commitments on Thanksgiving.
In 2006, Dave and I spent Thanksgiving in transition. I went to a friend's house on Thursday, to his sister's on Friday, and Monday we signed papers to sell our house and I moved into my condo in St. Paul. It was an emotional and physical chaos of activities and I'm still not sure how I got through all of it. I had a lot of help from friends (especially our move coordinator Sally).
I hosted a post-Thanksgiving Friday dinner for severely years with whatever friends are around and in need of turkey. This year, Marie and I are hosting a soup/salad/sandwich dinner and I'm looking forward to it.
My Thanksgivings have changed but in many ways they are still the same as the early years with my family. Turkey, friends, laughing, eating, drinking. Oh and lots of cleaning before and after. Now though, I don't polish silver or iron table linens. At least that part has gotten easier.
Hope your Thanksgiving includes traditions old and new and, if you're in the area and want some turkey on Friday, give us a call!

Ahhh-CHOOO

I've been sick with a nasty cold that turned into a sinus infection. After two rounds of antibiotics, lots of hot tea, hours spent in bed watching Grey's Anatomy on my iPad, and much sympathy from my housemates (both two-legged and four-legged), I think I'm starting to feel better.
I'm a pretty active person and being sick forces me to be sedentary and rest. I don't like being in bed thinking about all the things I could be doing, all the places I could be going, and all the things that aren't getting done. I can remember feeling good, but I can't imagine that I will ever feel better.
And of course I always think I can force the cold to go away through sheer mental power. Then I start my usual round of activities and end up back in bed.
I don't get sick often - my last cold was December 2011 and my last sinus infection spring of 2009. I'm not a pleasant sick person so it's probably good I'm mostly healthy. When I do get sick, I remember all the previous times I was sick and how annoying it was.
When I was in 9th grade (about 1973) I had a bout of not wanting to go to school. I was convinced I had rheumatic fever or mono and wanted to stay in bed. (I probably read about some suffering heroine with rheumatic fever.) I remember my mom taking me to the doctor (a female doctor, rare at that time) who said I didn't have anything medical but had some reason for not wanting to go to school so my parents humored me and I stayed in bed.
At the time, I was going to a local evangelical Christian school and starting to realize my beliefs didn't fit their teachings (no, my Jewish friends were not going to hell - even I knew that). I think those ideas partially led to my "sickness." I wasn't exactly sick, but I wasn't happy.
About halfway through that year, I switched schools and went to St. Paul Open School. The summer of 1974, I went to New Mexico and lived with my cousin and her family.  I came back for another year at Open School which mostly meant I spent a year reading whatever I wanted to. I knew I needed a stronger academic program since I was sure I wanted to go to college. My parents knew I thrived in an all-girls atmosphere so they decided to try Convent of the Visitation High School in Mendota Heights. I started in the fall of 1975 in 10th grade (I repeated sophomore year since my attendance had been spotty). I loved Vis and didn't have any desire to spend weeks in bed.
Now when I get sick, I worry that it might be something worse. I'm in my mid-50s and have started seeing friends with debilitating illnesses, parents ailing and passing away, so I know what being really sick means. I'm protective of my health, keep up with my checkups and tests, watch my diet, and exercise. I'm not a hypochondriac but I'm definitely more careful now than I was in my 20s and 30s. I'm a lot more willing to take a doctor's advice than I ever was before.
So this round of cold/sinus crap seems to be on its way out - it better not be back anytime soon!