Up until now, I've had Thanksgiving in very logical places. My parent's house. My grandparent's house. My brother-in-law's parent's farm. And until tomorrow, the most out of the way Thanksgiving I'll have had will have been in Frasier, Colorado, when Emma was a wee thing miserable in a big white snow suit. I believe this was my freshman or sophomore year in college.
Tomorrow, I'll have Thanksgiving in Knoxville, Tennessee. My brain does not compute this.
My parents, as is probably well known, moved from Colorado to Tennessee this past April, shocking the hell out of all who knew them... I think they were even a little shocked themselves. And this totally conflicts with my previous concepts of Thanksgiving. I've had many a southern-climate Thanksgiving, don't get me wrong... but I have a feeling that Orlando feels very different than Knoxville around the holidays. Thanksgiving involves trips to theme parks while seeing the granparents, or sunny cold weather so dry you use up a whole tube of cherry flavored chapstick (the only good kind, thank you) over a weekend. I'm supposed to get an awful cold over Thanksgiving and I feel fine! What is going on here?
I guess I shouldn't be too critical. I am going to see my entire immediate family, after all, and I actually can't remember the last time we were all in the same place. Maybe in St. Louis, in the early days of me and Tom going out? And Emma probably doesn't even remember this.
This will be a completely new, weird weird weird concept of Thanksgiving to me. But the essentials will still be there. Standing rib roast (which my parents prefer over turkey), tofurky with tofurky gravy (for the silly vegetarian), and hopefully a beautiful dinner blessing courtesy of my niece that will top the last one. (Her last consisted of "Dear God, thank you for the love and the cheese. Amen.")
I could get all mushy here and say that Thanksgiving is really about family, and that spending time with them no matter where you are is the real trick. But I may be overstating my point. As long as the music, laughter, wine, and trivial pursuit are flowing, I could be happy with Thanksgiving just about anywhere.
Even if it does start out with me and Tom waking up in a hotel in Indianapolis.
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