Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I want to let my family know that this year Chris and I have decided to stay home for Thanksgiving. We always have 4 or 5 places to go for every holiday and it is exhausting for our children and for us. My parents and Chris’s parents do so much for us. They are our daycare (for free mind you), the in-laws make a big family dinner for us every Sunday and they are all always there at the drop of a hat if we need them for anything. Thanksgiving seemed like the perfect opportunity to take time out and let them know how thankful we are for all that they do for us. So we are going to cook up a big dinner and have them over for Thanksgiving. Also, Dad will be overseas and it is important to me that Mom does not have to spend the holiday on her own.
On the other hand I find it sort of strange that this year of all years we decided to have our own Thanksgiving. Now more than I ever had I feel the need to connect with my extended family and let our relationships grow from Aunt/Uncle to niece to something of an adult friendship. The thing I love the most about my dad’s siblings is that everyone is so different. We have a good mix of people to make up this big family. I think that is also why it was so easy for me to introduce Chris and bring him into my family traditions. Everyone is a little bit different so no one is really out of place. I think it’s a beautiful thing. As I am growing into my role as an adult, wife and mother I find that I really enjoy reaching out to my aunts and uncles for advice or just to hear funny stories of things that happened to them when all the cousins were small and they were in the place I am now.
It is a blessing to read all these blogs and get a glimpse into the private lives of the people that make up my family. I really don’t know my family on anything more than a holiday gathering level. Last night I read Beth’s new blog. I got a little weepy. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a real conversation with Aunt Beth but I’ve always thought of her as such a beautiful person on the outside. It’s nice to see the beauty on the inside too. I appreciate the raw honesty I took from her last post. Sometimes I find that I censor myself for what goes into my posts and focus mostly on my children. After all my family is reading! My whole life it has been Grandma’s family. Now all Dad’s brothers and sisters are Grandma and Grandpa themselves and we are all starting to focus more on our immediate family rather than the group of us as a whole. I’ve always wondered if we would still all get together for holidays when Grandma isn’t here to bring us together anymore. As important as it is to share the holidays with our children and grandchildren I do hope that we still make time to gather as a big group. I still have many life lessons to learn and lots of aunts and uncles to guide me.
To sum up, I love my family. I love reading their blogs. And if I do anything to encourage someone else this year I hope that it is to encourage my family to open up and get to know each other on a more personal level. Pick an aunt, uncle or cousin and have a conversation with them about something that is important to you or something you have learned. Thank you Grandma for having a bunch of children so that I could have a big group of people to love and learn from. I hope that in the years to come we do not take each other for granted. I hope that everyone else enjoys watching the people around me grow as much as I do. I guess that I have turned into quite an emotional person, but it is hard not to be moved when the blessings in my life are so many.