I am pretty sure this is not what Mama meant when she said everybody should pull their own little red wagon. You may even question the term “red” at this point, but in its origins, that was its color. As I recall, we got the wagon when the oldest grandson showed up big enough to ride, which would make it about twenty-five years old.
The challenges of this year’s Thanksgiving have been different from the last. A year ago, we were still unpacking in the new house but managed to help pull off all the ingredients of a happy Thanksgiving with our son’s family next door, complete with some grown grandchildren and an extra who came. DIL Kelly and I split the menu and cooked before we all ate together at their house. Little did we know what this year would entail! But Thanksgiving comes all the same. The little red wagon will help.
Al and I have sheltered for eight months now, with help from those next-door neighbors, and it seems foolish to blow our caution on one meal. Mark and Kelly, who have been in our bubble with their two boys, has her sister’s family who traveled down this week in addition to themselves. So, Al and I ate at our house, but we split the menu again. Kelly has allowed me to make my favorites - the rolls, dressing, sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top, and turkey. We added Al’s chocolate sheet cake and rolled the wagon to their house. She, in turn, rolled back down some ham, sausage stuffing, creamed corn, green beans, cheesecake, and peanut butter pie. We each have our own cans of cranberry sauce chilling in our own fridges – none of this fancy homemade cranberry stuff for either of us even though we both know how to cook. Our people like to see can ridges on their slices.
We got out the big dinner plates to have enough room for the food and stuffed ourselves into a nap-inducing afternoon!
Here’s hoping next Thanksgiving will lend itself to a crowd all together. Yet when we smell the aroma of baking turkey and dressing, look at the abundance on our plates, think about the joy that went into the preparation, and know that we pulled it off together with the help of a little red wagon, we can see that even in 2020 we have much that calls for thankfulness.