It's hard to believe but Thanksgiving is a few days away. It has always been my favorite holiday, not only because of the food (and I love the food) but it's the enjoyment of family being together and savoring the spirit of the holiday. It's also the unofficial beginning of what I call the Christmas Season, although Walmart thinks this begins around Labor Day.
I remember one particular Thanksgiving when I was a boy and my aunt was married to Uncle Stewart. Uncle Stewart was an "embiber" and sometimes this would make him extremely thankful. The house we grew up in was very small but adequate except for times like Thanksgiving when more than four people were in it. It became pretty crowded (it was a small four room house) so "close fellowship" took on a new meaning. Uncle Stewart had drank more than his share of the eggnog this particular year and was making himself "less than bashful." My Dad thought he would be the perfect one to offer up the annual Thanksgiving prayer before the meal and he invited him to do just that (much to the chagrin of my Mother).
We all gathered in the dining room and kitchen and living room with the adults seated at the larger tables and us kids (which I believe was only my brother and I and our cousin) sat at temporary card tables. Uncle Stewart began his prayer. It went something like this...
"Dearest Lord, creator of the universe, leader of leaders, king of all kings, please hear our prayer. We thank you Lord for this gathering, for this food which was so carefully and earnestly prepared with love of our fellow man. We thank you for this wonderful family and all it's members and other members who are not with us here today but are here in mind and spirit. We know they are seated at your bountiful table in heaven enjoying the feast you have prepared for them and will prepare for each of us as we strive to join them in heaven. We thank you for the many blessings we all receive daily, both material and spiritual. We thank you for the opportunity to live in this community of close friends and neighbors and for allowing us to live in this great and wonderful country, the land of the free and the home of the brave with justice and liberty for all. We thank you for this beautiful day and for the glorious sunshine and warm temperatures that accompany it. We thank you for our policemen and firemen who lay their lives on the line for us on a daily basis and we pray that you never let us take that for granted. We thank you for our soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines who are away from home and their loved ones and we ask for a special blessing for them on this special day. We thank you for Cy and Helen and their two wonderful little boys (yeah, right!) for allowing us into their home and their hearts that we can celebrate this Thanksgiving holiday together as a unified family. We thank you for the vehicles that allowed us to arrive here safely and pray for a safe return home. We thank you for running water and indoor bathrooms, something we've not always had the pleasure of owning. We thank you for the delicious and beautiful desserts that will finish off this fine meal. We also thank you for the rare Kentucky tobacco that will allow us to partake of a fine cigar at the completion of it. We thank you for modern conveniences that you allow us to have such as a television that gets four channels. We thank you for our freedoms such as freedom of the press and freedom to own a gun that we might hunt and survive on the game animals you have so generously given us, including the fine turkey that lays before us on this day. We pray that you use this special day to cure the sick and infirmed that they might enjoy this day also. We pray that you be with those neighbors behind us in the rest home and do all in your almighty power to keep them conscious and alert so that they might share in the joy of this day. Please bless our sanitation workers who so faithfully pick up and dispose of our garbage and take it somewhere for safekeeping. Lord, we thank you for the many amenities we enjoy in our lives such as electricity, warm heat and quiet fans that bring relief on humid days. We thank you for these women who dutifully prepared this meal laid before us, not only today, but every day. We thank you for giving them the power and fortitude to prepare our daily lunches and wash the clothes on our back as we set off every day to the fields of hard labor. We thank you for the beautiful white clouds in a bright blue sky. We thank you for giving us rain when we need rain, snow when we need snow and sunshine when we need sunshine. We thank you for the four seasons of the year, Summer, Winter, Spring and Fall. We thank you for the kindness of our employers that they allow us a week each year for a vacation and we thank you for the means to utilize that vacation by having dependable transportation. We ask that you bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies and we humbly ask that you make us refrain from over indulging and commiting gluttony. Most of all, we thank you for your Father, our God and we sincerely and respectfully ask that he consider our good points when it comes to that final day of judgement. Amen."
By the time this prayer had ended, the food was cold, the milk was hot and my brother and I had large knots on our heads where Dad kept hitting us with the handle on his carving knife as we tried to contain our laughter. Mom was already mad at Dad for asking Uncle Stewart to say the prayer in the first place. She was a devout Catholic and the standard Catholic prayer was "Bless us, O Lord, for these Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen." That's it! Amen!
The greatest thing about Thanksgiving back then was the four day weekend that accompanied it. Friday after Thanksgiving was set aside for eating leftovers (in fact we did this for several days) and for getting the Christmas tree, and putting up all the decorations. Dad always had to work, so Mom, my brother and I were left with this task. Bub and Mom usually handled the inside and I would take care of the outside. This was in the days of string lights and when one was out, they all were out. It took all day to get them working and to set up various lawn displays. My favorite was a navtivity scene complete with a manger, Joseph & Mary, the baby Jesus, some sheep and a couple of donkeys (these were plywood cutouts Dad made and I painted). Right beside this beautiful religious scene, we'd stick old Santa, just like he was right there, sort as the fourth wise man. I guess people liked it as they usually stopped their cars in front and stared at it for a few minutes. I remember one year I built an outhouse (complete with half-moon on the door), decorated it with lights and a wreath and placed a cutout of snoopy in a Santa hat in front of it. Someone stole my Snoopy the second night it was out, so the outhouse had get us through the holidays on it's own. Mom wouldn't let me put it back out the next year, with or without Snoopy!
On Saturday morning, we'd head downtown for the annual Christmas Parade and then when it was over we'd load in the car and drive to Madisonville for their parade.
Saturday night, provided Dad got home in time, we'd drive around town and look at everyone else's Christmas decorations.
The best Christmas decorator I remember was Ogden Craig over on Broad Street. Mr. Craig would spend weeks on end before Christmas designing and building a new yard scene each year. Every year was new and every year outdid the previous year. Traffic would line up and people came over from throughout the county to view it. It was a major tourist attraction. These weren't just "still" scenes...they were animated. They had movement. They seemed to come to life. I often wondered what happened to all of them (he probably built about twenty-five complex scenes).
As the years have progressed, my Christmas spirit gets harder and harder to come by. My wife pretty much decorates solo. She always creates a beautiful tree and we've managed to collect and save a lot of decorations throughout the years. It takes her about a week to fully decorate the house. My job usually entails going under the house, getting out the three plywood deer we have, sticking them in the landscaping out front and mounting a spotlight on them. It takes all of about ten minutes and I'm "humbugging" and "griping" the entire ten minutes. My brother is worse than I am. He owns a ceramic Christmas Tree that stands about a foot tall and only needs to be plugged in and he won't even do that! He always comes over to our house on Christmas and enjoys Pat's tree.
Our oldest son lives in Owensboro. His brother-in-law (husband of his wife's sister) starts decorating their house around Labor Day and he doesn't get finished until December 1, when he officially turns the lights on. They live in one of the subdivisions out Highway 54 on a corner lot. They have so many lights and decorations, they had another 200 amp electrical box installed in their home. Even doing this requires them to only use their clothes dryer during daylight hours when the lights are not on as even with the second electrical box, it would kick circuit breakers if used at the same time. And he keeps adding to it every year. The entire subdivision decorates extensively but none can hold a candle to their house. It is usually on the front page of the Messenger-Inquirer each year. Beginning on December 1, when the lights come on, it becomes a fairyland of Christmas. Jeff (his brother-in-law) usually dresses like Santa and along with his neighbors, they stand at the entrance to the subdivision and give out candy to kids (paid for out of their pocket) and collect donations for the Goodfellows Santa Clothes Club fund which helps underpriviliged children at Christmas.
After Christmas, he then begins the arduous task of taking down, boxing, labeling and putting away the decorations. This takes about a month. I admire his dedication.
I've got to admit that even with our economy in the shape it's in, we still have so much to be thankful for. We still live in the greatest country on earth, have good neighbors, wonderful families and life is good. Most of all we still have the ability to laugh and enjoy our lives. For that we Thank You God! Amen!!!
Wonderful blog, we always visit the brother-in-law's home in Stonegate, wouldn't miss it. Loved the prayer, we are having turkey with our neighbor's family, think I oughta take it to read???
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