It’s Thanksgiving morning and the turkey is in the oven, we’re watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and waiting for my in-laws to arrive.  I’ve often said that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and I mean it completely.  It’s a humbler holiday than Christmas: none of the glitz, pressure, only a fraction of the expense. 

I remember a Thanksgiving when I was perhaps in the fifth grade.  The rest of my brothers were out for the morning.  My best guess is that the older ones weren’t living at home and the younger two were hunting with my father (He never shot anything; He loved to hike in the woods, though!)  My mother and I went to the Thanksgiving morning Mass at our home parish, and then we walked home in a light snow storm.  It was one of those perfect moments that I will never forget.  Our town was quiet, the snow was painting it stunningly white, we seemed to have all the time in the world (perhaps my mom wouldn’t have agreed with this last statement given the meal she would be preparing once we got home.) Even now, when I think about early experiences with God, this one comes to mind immediately.  I think I had even enjoyed Mass that day.

For a couple of years in the mid-eighties, I lived in South Carolina.  These were the first Thanksgivings I didn’t spend with my family, but they were a lot of fun.  My neighbor and best friend, Yoseph, would have people over: Dwayne, my teenaged juggling partner; Sue, my future bride; the band teacher from the high school; Yoseph’s latest girl friend.  Dwayne and I would find an hour or so to throw clubs back and forth to each other, but mostly we enjoyed time off from school and hanging out together.

Early in our marriage, Sue and I alternated Thanksgiving celebrations between her parent’s house in Southern Maine, and my dad’s house in Vermont.  One year in Vermont, I began my Thanksgiving morning juggling on my father’s driveway.  He sat in his favorite chair at the kitchen table alternately watching Sue prepare the meal and me juggling outside his window.  For the first and only time in my life I juggled seven balls for a full 11 throws and 11 catches.  I looked up at the window, and sure enough my father had seen it.  I held up seven fingers, and he mouthed the word ‘seven?’ in shocked pride.  I have never gotten to the point where I could perform seven balls, and I have since stopped trying.  I’m thankful this Thanksgiving that the one time I ‘performed’ it successfully was for an audience of one… my dad.

Then, a few years ago, we had Katrina and her boy friend, Jim, with us here in Bridgton.  Katrina had been my student in the mid-nineties, and had lived with us as a young adult for a while.  She met Jim at college in Canada.  On that Thanksgiving, Jim asked me for Katrina’s hand in marriage, then, after a long, honest man-to-man talk, he brought her outside under our pine tree in a light snow and proposed to her.  They are now married and parents of two small children.

There have been, of course, many other Thanksgivings, and most don’t have the  very clear and specific memories these ones carry.  But I can  never think of a bad Thanksgiving, a disappointing Thanksgiving, a highly stressful Thanksgiving.   For that I'm thankful.