What Matters Most

By Tom Anselm

This year, Thanksgiving comes a week earlier than usual.  It is officially held on the fourth Thursday of November, so that stays the same. But if you’re like me, it just seems that Turkey Day kinda snuck up on us this time. Although after last week’s freaky snowstorm, it was beginning to look like Christmas!
Not to worry.  The ladies in our family, May God Bless Them, have it covered, taking care of all the arrangements, from a thorough house-cleaning to selecting the menu to buying the stuff to go into the stuffing to Pre-Cook Wednesday.  If it were up to me, like most guys, likely, it would be Crave Cases and pizza delivery with a cooler full of beer spread out on a card table in the garage.  Dessert would consist of Dilly Bars and Blizzards, maybe a few Slushies from the Circle K.  Lucky for all, we will not be designated chief event planners any time soon.
My major responsibility on this wonderful feasting day is… well, I guess I really don’t have one. Unless it’s to start the fire and keep it stoked all afternoon, something right in my wheelhouse. And carve the turkey… not a tough task. Oh, I do get to hang with the grandkids a lot, which is plenty fun, or just wandering here and there helping with this or that, as assigned by the distaff staff of the gang.
Jill and I seem to have raised some very strong and competent young women, and they know how to throw a shindig.  The food is magnificent, as usual. Never disappoints.  And all throughout and after, the best thing I can do on this wonderful day is to just stay the heck out of the way.
Now the other guys in the clan don’t get off so easily.  For years, they have volunteered to do the dishes, which is very gallant of them, considering the gals have put in already nearly five times the effort on the front end of the feast.  And they do it with great energy and aplomb, especially as they concoct a special cocktail each year as fuel for their journey into the soap and suds and swiping of towels.
Again, my role here is also negligible. Well, that’s not true… my role is nonexistent.  I have been exempt from this duty, quite in an unspoken manner.  Thanks, boys. I can be found adding wood to the blaze, or on the couch, a touch of  Jack D. in my mug, holding the latest youngster.  And honestly, that works just fine for me.
For this presents the high privilege of surveying the scene.
Over there might be a few rugrats coloring together on the floor with their cousins.  The boys, weather permitting, are out in the back with a soccer ball, many times joined by the older girls.  Smaller ones likely have moved downstairs with the Barbie stuff acquired from who-knows-which older kids’ stash.  There are the guys in the kitchen, loudly ‘ragging’ on each other as they rag the dishes dry, the ladies taking a well-deserved respite on whatever chair or couch cushion they can find.  Someone invariably has grabbed a throw-blanket and pillow and is nestled in front of the fire… the fire that I have so dutifully kept in fine form.
Then, Grandma Jill takes center stage with her 15-year-and-counting traditional gifts. Out come the Christmas pajamas, first-initial ornaments and candy cane filled with Hershey’s Kisses.  And, of course, there is the group picture, all donning their new ‘jammies.
Eleven of them this year, thanks to the newest, 5-month old Thomas Paul.
And I quietly, deeply, humbly send a prayer of thanks to The Big Provider in the Sky for yet another day of unparalleled gifts.
The best one being, we get to do this all again in a month! Maybe we’ll have snow then like we had in mid-November.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, and May God Bless.

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