The family will start arriving early in the morning. My side and my wife's side don't always get along the rest of the year but they make a semi-effort to do so for Holidays. We expect the usual mixture of mayhem and masks. And we hope that those few minutes of grace will transcend the ruckus and cut through the facades to reach our Creator with a sincerity that will bring us compassion and peace.
This year we will try to avoid talking about politics like we usually do. But most of the time, before the dessert rolls around, it has slipped into the conversation at the adult table. I think this year will be different. This year I expect the conservatives at the table will not have much to say. Because how will we address the gloating of the relatives who think Obama walks on water without exploding into a justified rage? I believe we will just nod and say pass the Turkey. We've had a good deal of wind knocked out of us, but not for that reason do I think there will be silence. I think there will silence because the tendency to glare at the Democrats and accuse them of sending America straight off the cliff to hell will be too great to flirt with. I think we will give the children their day to be thankful and visit their cousins and to feel the support of their exended families, something America seems to be sorely lacking in anymore.
After dinner is over and the Brandy and cigars are passed out, I will find myself on the porch with people that I love, and others, not so much but here we will be standing on the porch side by side anyway. I will try to forget that in the days and months ahead we will all likely suffer for the beliefs that some of them hold about what America is and should be. I've had my arguments with and tried to educate some of them until I am blue in the face. What will be the point on a day of thanks to bring any of it up now? No, instead I will laugh at their bad jokes, talk about how their kids are doing in school and jab them about their favorite teams winning or losing. I will be safe behind my own mask and the young people will hopefully have a day basking in their family's gathering and feeling that there is hope in the love we appear to show each other.
I'll let them have that. Our children must not be deprived of hope and support.
And looking back at the days when I was the one at the kid's table, I now know, that the adults probably made the same sacrifice for me. The one hope this country has is in the biggest thing the left is aiming to destroy, our families. I won't let them have it. Even if I do have to be quiet at the dinner table when someone says how happy they are that Obama won. There will be plenty of days ahead to point out just how dangerous of times we are living in and why. Thanksgiving won't be one of them for me. Instead I will focus on the meaning of the day, or rather what it has come to mean in our family: a time to gather our tribe, to be thankful we have food on the table and a roof overhead, a time to catch up on how fast the children are growing and a day to hope that God almighty forgives us for our sins and continues to bless us and teach us the way that we should go.
I'm wishing you all a meaningful blessed day of Thanksgiving.
By Dale Barnes
Sometimes Thoughtful, Often Thankful, Lover of My Family
Congratulations. How wonderful. I hope it went as well as or better than you hoped for.
