“Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving Dinner,” appeared in the November 20, 1869, Harper’s Weekly – blogs.princeton.edu
Today is Thanksgiving … and my mind goes back to when I was a little girl. 1956 was a particular year. We’d moved to Illinois where my mother, my brother and sister and I would be living for a few months in an upstairs apartment in my Aunt’s house. My father would be leaving soon for the Philippines, we would follow a couple of months later.
But on that day we were all together at Grandma’s house. My aunt, mother and grandmother had been cooking since the day before. The house was full of the aromas of spices and now the turkey, in the oven since early morning, added it’s own particular perfume. We kids were all excited, running around like wild Indians in and out of the house.
Around 3:00 my other aunt and her family arrived just in time … Grandpa turned on the TV … There it was! The great Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. We kids sat around on a quilt thrown on the floor to watch the parade. Just as Santa rode by on his sled, Grandma called us all into the kitchen for dinner.
Applesauce, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, candied yams, corn, fresh-baked rolls and the turkey with its stuffing. The Table seemed to groan with all the weight of that food. We must have been twenty people around that table, mostly kids. Grandpa had turned the TV off and had his radio going again … so we had music in the background.
But before we began to eat, we said grace. Holding hands, making a chain, each of us said a few words of thanks for all we had.
giving our thanks
celebrating abundance
united in love
(c) G.s.k. ’14
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