My dads family has been holding a family reunion at Thanksgiving every year for over 50 years. Back then they even hunted or grew everything that they ate. My dad's parents had 11 children my dad is #9 (#10 died at birth).
Only 1 and then 2 of my dad's sibling had moved away from home including my dad. My family went every year for Thanksgiving though, no matter where the United States Air Force had moved us to. My brothers had a couple cousins around their age and my sisters had 3 girl cousins their age. We went and loved going even though there were few kids our age and we were frequently bored. I loved Grandma. She was the most perfect person I have ever known. My Grandpa had died before my parents married so we never knew him. I loved seeing my Aunts, even with their beehive type blue hair. It took years for me to figure out who was who, they looked a like back then.
When I was 16 my parents decide not to go. They let me drive my sisters the 12 hours by myself so could go. WOW that was a lot of trust they put in a young kid. I had only had my license 5 months.
Grandma died a year before I married. I stopped going. It was and is a long trip we didn't feel we could afford.
Every year I still get an invitation in the mail. Every year I read every word on the invitation even though it is the same. Every year I shed a few tears that I won't be there. I hold on to the invitation until after the holidays and I throw it out with the Christmas cards. Evey year I say with tears what a Jewish mother would say, "Next year the promised land!"
It is not my home, I never lived there. It was, and is now again, my parents home. It is not the promised land. But I want to go. I am confident there would be some boredom for my kids like there was for me. When my hubby and I talk about moving back "home" Thanksgiving is one reason why.
I want to go home.
2 comments:
The annual family Thanksgiving dinners (actually reunion) started in 1944 - 64 years ago. On 11-27-08 we actually held our 64th consecutive Thanksgiving day reunion.
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I visited my great-great-aunts' house maybe five times that I can remember until the last one (Bess) passed away in 1994. It was in Wilmot, WI, 2 hours away from Chicago. There was nothing to do but chase rabbits, play with the snapdragons, watch fireflies, and catch baby turtles on the Fox River. It was unbearably hot and sticky and infested with box elder bugs sometimes. There were scary snakes and spiders. For whatever reason, though, I just feel like I want to buy that house because it feels like home to me.
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