Columnists
Dearly beloved
Life is an adventure, or so I’ve heard. This weekend we were in the GTA to attend our youngest son’s wedding. Imagine, Thanksgiving Weekend at a wedding. Most of my life I thought Thanksgiving Weekend was all about turkey with all the trimmings, eating too much, drinking too much, a sink full of dishes to wash and a house full of family and friends. I knew in my heart, if you looked up the word “Thanksgiving” in the dictionary, the description would have been just the way I described it. I couldn’t envision Thanksgiving being any different. And then? Well, and then our parents passed away. Our families had to figure out who would take the reins of the orchestrating the festive events. As it turned out, the responsibility for recreating Thanksgiving weekend eventually fell to me, in the County. The Toronto siblings rotated the responsibility from household to household. And just when I thought we had it all figured out, my sister- in-law (newly arrived in the County) announced she’d like to host the Thanksgiving feast. And so, in this end of the province, she became the Thanksgiving Goddess to our family. She did a wonderful job because she’s got this holiday-thing going on in her head and she really pulls out all the stops. Whew for me. I could focus on Christmas. And “wow”, a new tradition was created for the County-centric folks. And then?
Well, and then our son decided to get married on this Thanksgiving Weekend! But what about the turkey? What about the gobble till you wobble? What about all of the pie and whipped cream? What about the mashed potatoes and gravy? And to add interest in the midst of the chaos of a wedding being planned (not planned by us, by the way), our youngest grandchild decided to make a very early appearance. For a moment, it looked like we’d miss the wedding and the turkey and stuffing. But there we were, spending a couple of nights in a hotel in the GTA waiting for the appointed hour to show up at the wedding venue. At the appointed hour, the nuptials took place. A wonderful family and friends meal was served. Music was played. The wedding cake had been baked by our soonto- be daughter-in-law. The guests laughed and visited and ate and drank and laughed a bit more. Photos were taken. Skype kept the whole bunch in touch with the new parents in Brandon who, for obvious reasons, couldn’t be there. Was there a turkey? Nope, we didn’t get any turkey this weekend. And that’s just fine because we had everything and everyone else around us. We were thankful. In the GTA, with old friends, family members and now expanded family, we couldn’t have asked for much more.
And so we are truly thankful. We’ve had a wedding celebration. We’ve got a new baby. We’ve got a new, official grandfriend and a brand new daughter-in-law. Some of the brothers and their others were able to join the wedding festivities. Young cousins got to reconnect. One of the brothers and his other live in the UK and won’t be around until later this week. But now LOML and I are thankfully thinking, “Hey, it could be turkey time, anytime!” Time to set the scales back ten pounds.
Comments (0)