Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday. I love that it’s about family and friends being together. Over the years we have had some amazing ones as I had a tendency to invite everybody and their brother. This year was especially wonderful as all except one of my siblings were able to gather at my brother’s house for Thanksgiving this year. This year I was especially thankful to celebrate with family.
The house I currently live in we moved in the weekend before a Thanksgiving. If memory serves me, I invited sixteen people for Thanksgiving dinner. We had three days to settle in and prepare for the company. Dinner ended up being store-bought, but we were ready before everyone arrived. Another year a couple showed up that I had forgotten I had invited. A quick rearrange of the seating and we were ready.
A dear friend would come to my home for nearly every holiday. He was with us so often my kids started calling him Uncle John.
I’ve worked hard to instill in my children that the holidays are about togetherness, not presents. This led to a tradition for many years of doing things between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Every year we would go together to pick out the Christmas tree. Decorating the house and the tree was always a group effort. By the time we were done, Christmas shone from every corner.
Another wonderful tradition we did for many years was Christmas caroling. The kids would invite friends and parents and we would wander around the neighborhood, singing carols to everyone’s delight. After we had entertained all the neighbors we would then return to the house for cocoa and cookies.
The Christmas caroling party gradually morphed into a cookie exchange. I’d always plan this before the end of the school year so I’d have lots of variety for teacher gifts. In the early school years, we would make dozens and dozens of cookies. The favorite being the six-in-one refrigerator cookies. Fantasy fudge being a close second. This also meant a ton of leftover cookies. When I heard of the cookie exchange concept it was an easy choice to shift the party to include it with the party. Everyone would bring a dozen bags of a dozen of the same cookie. Each participant would leave with a bag from every other participant. Thus, they have a small amount of a large variety.
Simon was a key character in our holiday traditions. Most kids are aware of Santa or an elf watching to let Santa know if you’ve been good or bad. I decided the concept of a random elf watching wasn’t adequate. I gave him a name – Simon. Simon was great at keeping tabs on the girls and he rewarded their good behavior with a gift or two in addition to what came from Santa and mom and dad.
Simon was around long before “Elf on a Shelf” and gave us many legacy moments through the years.