My favorite holiday is coming up soon.  I am not quite sure what makes Thanksgiving my favorite holiday.  I have always tried to figure it out, but I can never put my finger on it.  The crinkling of leaves, the bright colors, the smell of fireplaces being started all have something to do with my love for Thanksgiving.  When I turn on the radio and I hear the Adam Sandler song I know that my holiday season has started.  Check it out: 

Sure we all know the history behind our holiday of Thanksgiving.  But it is the non-traditional facts that I like to share at our family dinner.  What do I mean?  Well, did you know that in 1929 there were 600,000 turkey farmers in the United States?  Each farm only yielded about 26 turkeys per year.  Fast forward to 1997…….The number of turkey farmers dropped to 6,000; but the average farmer yielded 51,000 turkeys annually.  You can read more about these fascinating tips and history at:  http://www.stolaf.edu/depts/environmental-studies/courses/es-399%20home/es-399-05/Projects/Thanksgiving/index.htm
So at my family’s holiday dinner, it is not your typical sit down meal.  We have the traditional Thanksgiving meal, but our large family makes it exciting for sure.  Between the kids running afoot, and the multiple mini conversations going on at once, you get immersed in the antics of older cousins acting young.  We forget that we are in our thirties, and we go back and forth remembering the days of our youth.  Usually it takes one of the aunts to set out the pies, cookies, and collections of fruit baskets before we stop for air.  Even then, we will argue the cost of regular fruit baskets over organic fruit baskets, trying to prove our points louder than the next.  Last year we all took out our phones to search for some random site to prove our point.  My brother happened to fall upon www.cherrymoonfarms.com to win his argument.  I was out $20.
The best part of the dinner is when we go around saying what we are thankful for.  The parents and aunts always try and be serious, but by the time it makes it to the “adult” cousins, we turn it into a funny mush basket of thanks.  Not sure when this became tradition, but it seems as if we have been trying to make one another laugh since we were sitting in booster seats at the table.  I do not think we will ever be too old for that tradition.  I always want to be able to savor the day of Thanksgiving.  I want it to last forever, because it is at that long, messy, loud table that memories are made.