Thanksgiving is only two days away.  Today we clean house, tomorrow we make macaroni salad, pecan pie, and whatever else we can think of that will help a busy schedule.  My daughter is such a huge help and makes this 'big' deal a much smaller deal.  Now we can enjoy each others company on Thursday without getting so tired.  I can't stand in the kitchen as long as I used to, so every little thing helps.

I was thinking this morning laying in bed about my favorite Thanksgiving dinner we ever had.  My husband and I had just moved to Idaho with our two small children.  We spent every dollar we could scratch together for the down payment on our house.  We had moved at the end of September and couldn't find a house to rent so we bought one from a friend.  He was building it and had offered to let us move in early.

My husband didn't even have a job and with our savings now gone, Christmas was going to be a very small one.  Thanksgiving ended up being small too because when he finally found a job, got hired the week of Thanksgiving and on Wednesday night slipped on ice in the shop and broke his ankle.  With no insurance and no savings left, he went to the hospital, got his cast on and came home to suffer not only the pain but the loss of his dignity.

Since we had no money we had to eat something other than turkey for our T-dinner.  I decided on chicken as our best alternative.  We already had one in the freezer and it kind of looked like turkey.  Our seven- and eleven-year old children asked why we were having chicken instead of turkey.  My lame excuse went something like, "Oh, we decided to just do something different this year to give the poor turkeys a break".

That seemed to satisfy their questions.  All four of us shared a roast chicken that year.  There was plenty to eat and it gave them a sense of family that Thanksgiving is supposed to give.  We felt so blessed to be eating.  The entire day was filled with fun and laughter and to this day, my daughter doesn't remember that we didn't have a turkey that year.  My son and my husband are no longer with us,  but years later all we remembered was a wonderful family love fest.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.