Thanksgiving.

This is the first Thanksgiving I've had with my parents in seven years. It used to be a big holiday for us when we lived in Massachusetts. Everyone would come to our house and my mom would cook a huge meal. The adults would eat in the dining room and the kids in the kitchen. After dinner and dessert my brothers and I would go for a walk around the neighbourhood with my dad and some relatives while my mom and gram and yai would stay behind and clean up. After our walk, my brothers and I would perform a dance to the Macarena. (Ok. It was really just me.) This was the custom at every holiday. After we moved to Kentucky, Thanksgiving was whiddled down to the five of us. After we moved to Switzerland, Thanksgiving pretty much ended entirely. Some of the Americans would celebrate the weekend after Thanksgiving to maintain tradition but my family never really cared enough to acknowledge the holiday.

I woke up this morning (at around 2 pm) eager to eat the food I knew my mom started cooking at 7 am. For some reason I remembered that for my past Thanksgivings I composed poetry that I shared with the family after my performance of the Macarena. (I was a very creative child.) I found my poems. What a brilliant child I was. Here is one of my Thanksgiving poems circa 1996.

Thanksgiving
by: Maria

PART ONE

There is something I want to say,
That I have to say today,
There is no other way,
Than to just say,
Happy Thanksgiving Day!

PART TWO

My mom will be perky,
During the cooking of the turkey.
My dad will eat it up,
Like a hungry little pup.
I will set the table,
Then read an Aesop's Fable.
Brother 1 (Joey) will be crying,
You might have thought he was dying!
Brother 2 (Steve) is always fighting,
He got in trouble for biting!
Yai will start speaking Greek,
Trying not to peek.
Gramp will drink a beer,
When dinner is not even near!
Gram sits back in her chair,
Trying to feel a breeze that is not even there.
But we all say Happy Thanksgiving Day,
In our own special way.
Then dad breaks the silence just to say,
"Let's eat turkey! It's Thanksgiving day!"


And there you have it. The creepily intuitive strangely repetitive beginning to where my writing has developed today.

I wish I still had my books of Aesop's Fables.