It’s Thanksgiving Eve, and all is quiet in my house. No stressing, no chaos, no stuffing, no panic defrosting…. For the first time in a LONG time, we will be just the nuclear family for Thanksgiving, and I’ve got to say, my feelings are mixed. We have a high-paced life, and most of the roles my husband and I play are leadership/facilitating/pouring out kinds of roles, and we need a break sometimes. But in the same breath, we love Thanksgiving and the time it presents for spending time with people.
In college, I would run home to my family for Thanksgiving because it was driveable. Husband would be ‘adopted’ out to families local to his college, as his college was two time zones away from family. Shortly after marrying, we moved two time zones from family, and there began a tradition of exploring what ‘family’ meant in the broader sense of the term.
Family is a group of close friends who are peers at church.
Family are my in-laws in-laws and their extended clan.
Family is a mentoring older couple.
Family is the students who we now get to ‘adopt’ for the holiday.
And family is the other families in our life that have come to be adopted as our ‘siblings’, the boys’ ‘aunts and uncles’, and our dearest of friends.
So, on the eve of this holiday, we will be without all of those families. This holiday, we will learn in our new home, what it means to be just us-n’s. Familiar, no. Comfortable, not quite yet.
Our menu is simpler, far simpler than our first Thanksgiving, which consisted of an entire meal cooked from scratch. Yes, EVERY SINGLE ITEM. (And as a follow-up, we were so burned out we didn’t cook for about a week afterwards) We’re going for something much more realistic.
– Pumpkin Cheesecake (which I’ve already cooked and is currently 1/4 short of a full cake – I did a good job)
– Turkey breast (we didn’t need a whole bird for just us)
– Root vegetables (aka. carrots and potatoes)
– Green bean casserole (some things are non-negotiable)
– Homemade bread (other things are near and dear family traditions, and therefore a given)
Wishing you a very thankful, very joyous day.
~Me
CC: What's on my mind 
aww Thanks Caryn for sharing. What a fun year to start a new tradition for your "nuclear" family.Ours will be small as well, so we wish you a year of Many Happy Thanksgivings from our house to yours!
Thanks for sharing, I send you prayers and thanks for you and Dwayne and what you mean to the choir and to me.We are having dinner with our Daughter in Laws family. We have been home watching the Macy's parade and Dog show and receiving calls from Grand kids and Son. Happy Thanksgiving from our house to yours, Margaret