Happy Thanksgiving

I am grateful for many things this Thanksgiving...chief among them my own little turkey, who has brought me and my family so much joy this past year.

It's incredibly humbling how one's perspective of life changes in the face of near tragedy.

In Thanksgivings past, I used to be thankful that I had such cute/smart/funny/amusing children.

This Thanksgiving, I am just grateful that they are all here.

The Turkeys that Weren't Pardoned

Every year, we eat Thanksgiving dinner with our neighbors. When left to their own devices, Chuck, Helen-Marie, and their college-aged daughters pass over the turkey and stuffing in favor of homemade ravioli and made-from-scratch garlic bread. Fortunately they have me and my awesome cooking to save them from themselves.

My children spent the first part of the day fighting with each other in the basement. After lunch, I suggested that they take a break from the festivities and make seating placards for our dining room table (I'm one step away from Martha Stewart, I know). The process of tracing one's hand into the shape of a turkey took almost an hour. An equal amount of time, or so it seemed, was spent writing our dinner guests' names onto the pieces of paper.

Tragedy struck when Cortlen's turkey plopped himself onto the place setting next to the one occupied by Camber's turkey.

"You can't sit there!" my accommodating daughter screamed. "That's Helen-Marie's seat!"

Cortlen's turkey did not like to told what to do, especially by a bird with a bad attitude and pink toenails. He responded by ripping off those toenails, and the legs to which they were attached.

Although fatally wounded, Camber's turkey mustered enough strength in her dying breath to poke a hole through Cortlen's turkey with a fork.

Sadly, only four out of the eleven people eating dinner at our house tomorrow will know where to sit at the table.

The rest of the turkeys perished in the skirmish.

The Free Turkey

My grocery store runs a special promotion every November. If you spend $300 in qualifying purchases, you get a certificate for a free turkey that feeds 4-6 people.

To my horror, I realized at 11:15pm on the last day of the promotion that I was short of the target by $60.

"Please tell me you are not going to the grocery store right now," said my husband. He said this in a way that made my midnight shopping trip seem ridiculous and even unnecessary.

The truth of the matter was that I wouldn't have been able to sleep that night or live with myself the next day if I knowingly let the opportunity pass me by.

I filled my shopping cart with dry cereal.

"That sure is a lot of Honeycomb," observed the man standing in line behind me.

Despite cleaning out the store's stock of generic brand Cheerios, I still found myself $5.64 short at check-out.

A wave of panic rushed over me. Thankfully, the cashier was moved to mercy.

"I'll just give you the certificate for the turkey," the woman whispered. "You're close enough."

With the voucher in my hand, I felt redeemed.

"Thank you," I whispered back.

The woman smiled and looked at her watch, which was fast approaching the time of the store's closing. "Clearly it's important to you," she replied.

As I loaded the sixteen boxes of cereal into my trunk, my heart swelled with happiness and joy. I couldn't help but feel cheered by the discovery of a kindred spirit, another person who seemed to understand the logic of expending great sums of money and time to get an object for "free" that can be purchased for less than $20.

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Any more kindred spirits out there?