When I was a child, my anticipation of the holiday season began with that early release day from school before Thanksgiving. I loved Thanksgiving; I still do. As a kid it meant another day spent at my grandparent’s house seated around my Ma-Ma’s dining room table. It meant seeing my aunts and uncles that were able to make the trip into town and playing with my cousins for hours on end. Nothing beat the amazing smells coming out of the kitchen and the laughter emanating from every room. Some of my best memories center around Thanksgiving and around my grandmother’s table.

Alright, so let’s address the picture at the top of the page. Does it seem odd to be reading about Thanksgiving when the picture is clearly that of a Christmas decoration? Well, that’s just how my family rolls. This heavily used, worn, and scribbled on tablecloth was a staple of my childhood. It was pulled out and placed on my grandmother’s table every year the Friday after Thanksgiving. When she passed away it was given to my oldest sister and has since been used as the center piece for our Thanksgiving dinners. For the past three years we have written what we’re thankful for on the tablecloth before we sit down to dinner. It seems silly and it seems as if this wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but to me it’s everything. It’s the acknowledgment that though things didn’t quite go our way that year we can still find something to say. It’s about finding the joy in every situation regardless of how dim the outlook may seem.

Arriving at the holiday season means we have entered the home stretch. The year is coming to a close and it’s time to look back on just how far we’ve come over the past year. We survived the heartaches, the arguments, the frustrations, and now it’s time to celebrate and be thankful for everything we have despite all of that. The upcoming holidays are God’s promise of laughter, love, joy, and hope after ten months of merely surviving. And that is a promise I look forward to every single year. It's an excitement that starts with Thanksgiving and just keeps on building until New Year’s Day. As much as I loved Thanksgiving as a kid, I love it even more now that I have children of my own.

This simple tablecloth may not look like much now, but when I was a kid it was everything. It is the one thing that always reminds me of all of those Thanksgiving dinners at her table. It reminds me of the table itself which, as a small child, was always set for twenty plus people for every holiday dinner. As we all grew up and had families of our own that number seemed to shrink, but my Grandmother’s presence never did. Even when she had trouble moving around easily, she always sat in her usual place at the table. This worn out piece of fabric reminds me of that. It reminds me of her spirit. A little worn and tired, but strong and resilient. She never wavered, was always consistent, and always so full of love and life. Not unlike the tablecloth in the picture above. It may seem silly to compare a loved one to such an inanimate object, but I think memories can be tied to anything in our lives. A scent, a taste, something we can hold in our hands, or someone we can hug when life is just a little too much. My grandmother was all of those things for me. I miss her and I miss her dining room table being covered in this tablecloth every holiday season, but I look at it like this: When memories are all you have left, then memories are what you leave the world. I have my own children now and yes, one day in the not so distant future, perhaps my own grandchildren will be seated around my dining room table. So, I will share these memories and I will pass the plates around, and even though she can no longer join us in person, I will leave a place set for my Ma-Ma because she’ll always be here in spirit.