The Thanksgiving Song and (Remote) Dance

Our Thanksgiving is the same every year, and not one of us would have it any other way. From food to football, family to fun, we look forward to the same menu and dinner guests that make Thanksgiving so special. It’s just perfect the way it is.

We’ll pack up the kids on Thursday morning and head west to Amherst for “A Very Shumway Thanksgiving.” About two miles from our house, we’ll realize that we never got around to filling the tank with gas and begin the annual tradition of debating whether or not we can make it to the first rest stop on the pike. Just as we decide to give it a go and hope that the good Pilgrim spirits will get us to the Exxon with a teaspoon to spare, the kids will start asking if we’ll be there soon.

Gulp coffee. Breathe deeply.

If we’re lucky and Quinn doesn’t melt down by Worcester, we’ll know that a full-on traffic jam at I-84 is waiting for us up ahead (lighting never strikes twice). Once we make it off the Mass. Pike and through the windy back roads to Amherst, the children will pour out of the car and immediately start playing with their cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Andy and I will use this time to pour another cup of coffee, find a comfy place to sit and catch up with the family.

At this point, I will ‘bogart’ the remote and attempt to watch some of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade before all the football starts. Like clockwork, my husband and brother-in-law will tease me mercilessly until I give up the fight and surrender the clicker. Never fails.

By the time dinner rolls around, there’s enough food to feed a small country and we’ll pile up our plates. For some reason, I’m always nominated to say grace and we’ll dig in. There will be laughs, stories and compliments on the turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, 27 vegetables (my mother in law is a great cook); even the “Tofurkey” will find it’s way onto the plates of my sister-in-law and Shumway family friends. We’ll all pass on the gross coffee Jello and whipped cream that while never gets touched, is made every year. It IS a tradition, after all.

Dessert will consist of 13-18 pies (nope, not a typo), no matter how many people actually showed for dinner. My sister, brother-in-law and nieces will stop by for pie (his family is also from Amherst) and by that time, it’s dark and we’ve started thinking about going to bed.

Just as all the food is put away, 96-year-old family friend Mary Wyatt and her son Jimmy show up and dinner is brought back, warmed up and served again. When Mary puts her fork down, she starts to sing for the guests and everyone gets quiet, from the young to the old, and we all join in. It’s one of my favorite traditions of all.

Sadly, Mary passed away Sunday so there will be a quiet moment after dinner to remember her spirit that kept us all entertained for so many Thanksgivings. As much as we seem to have this recipe for the perfect holiday, we’ll have to tweak it in order to fill that void. We all seem to think that singing “Amazing Grace” or “You are My Sunshine,” just the way Mary did, might be the way to go. A tradition is a tradition, after all.

Just ask the lonely bowl of coffee Jello.