Thanksgiving Memories

I know how hard it is to have Thanksgiving without your Mom around. Today I put the CD of my Mom's songs in and listened to her voice singing the words she wrote. It was magical. We will always have the memories. Moms and Thanksgiving just seem to go together.

Since I had two, I'm gonna share a few.

My favorite memory of Paula, (my Step-Mom), was how Thanksgiving seemed to be the holiday made just for her. I LOVED to get to set the table for it. She LOVED to cook and we always had her FAMOUS green tomato pickles on Turkey-day. She introduced me to cranberry sauce that DIDN'T come out of a can. She always set the table with her beautiful brown and white expensive china on thanksgiving and it was a very formal affair. We had fruit salad with marshmellows and sour cream and cucumbers in sour cream and amazing stuffing/dressing with little green apples cut up in it. Her turkey was always juicy and never dry and her gravy was phenominal. Her mashed potatoes were made from red potatoes with a few of the skins left in and a scoop of sour cream, plenty of butter and parsely. I think I got to cook with her as much or more than most of you. I learned a few of her secrets.

On Sunday I watched an old episode of The Lawrence Welk Show. It was an old Thanksgiving special. Two of the songs Mama loved and sang often were featured. Sammy watched it with me and I told him his Gran loved those songs. They were "Bless This House" and "My Cup Runneth Over with Love". They were back to back and when the next song started Sam asked if my Mom loved that one too. So cute. Mom was, in my mind, an individual who knew how to express gratitude. She often played and sang those songs and many others that expressed to God and the mortals in her life her gratitude to them. Her fruit salad was amazing too! Green apples, mandarine oranges, pomegranites and whipped cream. Yum! Sierra says I have to make two. One with cream and one without, for her and the other healthy minded people in my fam. party poopers.

Mom used to cook thanksgiving dinners with several different birds. Not just a turkey. I think because Ben went hunting...there was goose, duck and morning doves. That was my favorite T-day of all time!