Viewport

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Impressions of the fall


I cannot believe it is November and almost Thanksgiving. We are headed to Boise for the holiday and our annual dinner at my brother's house. This will be our first Thanksgiving with our daughter and the first time my 82-year old mother will get to meet her. I am excited about that.
It will be an important Thanksgiving. For so many years I was the weird bachelor uncle and now that I have a family, I can sit at the big people's table without feeling too guilty.

Still, Thanksgiving is an odd holiday. When I was a kid, it was simply the halfway point between Halloween and Christmas. I knew it was supposed to be a time when everyone was supposed to express gratitude for everything they had, but it didn't involve candy or presents, so it didn't really capture my attention.

As I got older, Thanksgiving was an opportunity to come home from college and lord my worldliness over my family that was still stuck in Boise. As you can imagine, that really endeared me to them no end.

And Thanksgiving was also an opportunity for my brothers and I to bring old grievances from our childhood. My niece and nephews can probably cite verbatim the stories of Ted hitting Dan in the head with a hoe, Dan chipping my tooth with a shotgun shell he threw at me or me almost chopping off one of the neighborhood kid's hands with a hatchet (it was unintentional).

Once I met Tess and started taking her to Boise for Thanksgiving, things took a turn for the better. We stopped bringing up the old war stories, and avoided talking politics and religion. Come to think of it, dinner became pretty quiet.

This year I imagine EM will be the center of attention. We'll also have the birth of my nephew's daughter Ruby Grace in Minnesota to talk about and further evolve the holiday into what it was intended for -- a time to be thankful.

6 comments:

Karen said...

It is always a thrill to get promoted to the big people's table. Happy Thanksgiving Tim to you, Tess and your beautiful little girl Enya-Maria. Congratulations to your nephew and his wife on the birth of their baby girl too. That's wonderful news. You do indeed have a lot to be thankful this year :)

BlazngScarlet said...

Holidays are what we make them.

I have always loved Thanksgiving more than Christmas, but that was because when i was growing up, all the 'menfolk' would take off for 2 weeks to hunt ..... so it was only us Girls.

K. said...

Hope Thanksgiving is good this year! I'm sure Enya-Maria will be the star of the show. :)

JP (mom) said...

Happiest Thanksgiving wishes to you, Tess and Enya-Maria. JP/deb

R. said...

gypsy: Thank you for the congratulations.

tim-id: I always liked your tales and your worldliness. It was always neat to hear about life outside the sphere of the highway-district and Boise in general.

I sincerely wish we could have been there this Thanksgiving. I'd even do my best to speak in English.

Time said...

Gypsy,
Thanks. I'd wish you a Happy Thanksgiving too if Aussie's celebrated it :)

Blazngfyre, This dog don't hunt :)

K,
Thanks, it was and she was!

JP,
Thanks, hope yours was great, too.

R.
Thanks, I appreciate that. And we wish you three could have been there. EM loves babies and she doesn't care what language you speak.