Thanksgiving, for me, is quite honestly just like the stereotype. Way too many family members crowded into Gramma's house, so much food that the buffet takes over every inch of counter space in the kitchen, and even neat little autumn-themed table runners with overly extravagant center pieces. We stand in a circle in the kitchen, and we hold hands while Papaw says grace, and none of that ever changes. But that isn't to say that over the years, some Thanksgivings haven't been notably better than others. Some Thanksgivings are dull, mind-numbing events, that leave me aching for something to do. Others are nice, enjoyable, exciting even. And still others, one that I'm thinking of in particular, were perfect. I'm no pessimist, but as I can imagine is the case for most people, it is hard to go an entire day without any bit of it marred, or less than satisfactory. And whether my hindsight has just managed to brush up all the imperfections, one thanksgiving will forever be immortalized in my mind as flawless.
Now, to lay out first things first, I should say that my mom's side of the family is pretty redneck. You'll get that soon enough, but I just wanted you to brace yourself for the quirks you're about to witness. First among these, the day started off great when I woke up early that Thursday morning, cinnamon rolls were in the oven, and my cousin Alex invited me out for a pre-breakfast four-wheeler trek across the dead, frozen corn fields. I of course accepted as this is one of my favorite activities. Few things beat high speeds and biting cold, nor the freedom of 140 acres of little corn stalk stubs to mow over at will. Alex took lead and I followed him around, experiencing the utter joy that is losing all thoughts to the wind and the cold. We went through the fields, through the trees, briefly got lost in the trees... All good things.
The mid-part of the day passed uneventfully. It was good, but nothing worth mentioning, seeing as this blog post is already way too long for anyone to even care about it. I hung out with my cousins. I have a lot of them. Dinner was the usual, kids sat at one over-crowded table in the kitchen and adults sat at another in the dinning room. Alex and his brother were going through an anti-joke phase (What's green and has wheels? Grass, I lied about the wheels) so while the rest of us ate, they provided entertainment. Then, as things were dying down, two of my great uncles storm in, dressed in duck-dynasty equivalent, homemade hunting garb, asking if any boys wanted to come "Coon huntin'" with them. Nobody went, but don't worry, after dinner all the kids over 10 piled into the back of a beat-up red pick-up truck to drive out and meet them. Sure enough, they'd caught themselves a "Coon," and they tossed it on top of the truck for everyone to get a good look.
After this, we returned to the house and proceeded to light the biggest bon fire I'd ever seen. (They'd just taken down a barn. This is what became of the slats.) We made smores, tried to keep the little kids from walking right into the fire, and then had, of all things, a hay ride. Yes, I know. A hay ride. It had been dark for a good long while at this point so we went inside for an enthralling multiple rounds of what we like to call the name game. Before I tried it, I found it hard to believe it'd be exciting. In time since, I've have difficulty getting people to understand it, because I've never had a group large enough. But with the 25+ people playing that night, it was so much fun. You choose a name, they go in a hat, you have to guess who's who and try not to forget anyone, which is ridiculously hard. But it's pretty great. It was the only way to end the night.
And that, my friend, was the cheesy, way-too-long recounting of my favorite Thanksgiving. The holiday has never been my favorite, chiefly because I don't love the food and that's the only thing anyone else cares about, but that one year was pretty darn near perfect, redneck abnormalities and all.
This is entirely unrelated to my story, but to anyone who's still reading, which I'm pretty sure is no one, I'd like to share the best thing that happened this Thanksgiving. My brother made cornbread but when I walked in I thought it was cake. For obvious reasons, I was really bummed to discover otherwise. I'm not sure why but in some holiday miracle, my brother noticed this (very unlike him) and offered to bake me a real cake. So he did. I never ate it because I also had strep throat and didn't feel like eating anything, but I'm really happy about it so enjoy this picture of my hand-turkey Thanksgiving cake.
