From The Editor’s Desk – Home for the Thanksgiving holidays

Thanksgiving is my mom’s holiday.

As all her children began to leave the nest - as we married, moved out, and began our own lives, she made that fact very clear.

To her, it didn’t matter where we spent our Christmases, our Easters, our New Years, or our Passovers….as long as we were home on Thanksgiving.

When my first sibling to marry found his wife, they had the ‘whose house for the holidays’ conversation - and my brother made sure to request being at the Hunter Home on Thanksgiving.

When my dad was a professional firefighter, he’d take shifts on Christmas in order to try and be off-duty on Thanksgiving.

My mom doesn’t celebrate or care about very many holidays - we are religious, but Easter/Passover isn’t something we go all out on, and we haven’t had a Christmas tree in our home since I was in my pre-teens.

But Thanksgiving is very important to her.

It has very little to do with the origins of the holiday - my mom couldn’t possibly care less about pilgrims and a glossy-view of what that ‘first Thanksgiving’ was actually like.

Instead…I think this holiday is so important to her because it is the one day out of the year where everyone pitches in, comes together, and eats.

There is no pressure for gift giving, or sunrise services, and there is less widespread commercialization (oh it’s there, for sure, but most of the commercialization gets passed on to Black Friday).

It’s just food and family.

It is also the only holiday I can remember celebrating with her mom’s side of the family - we weren’t close to my mom’s mom, but I do have a few foggy memories from when I was very young, of sitting in my great-grandmother’s very child-UNfriendly South Florida home on Thanksgiving.

Eventually, my mom brought Thanksgiving into her own home - we spent Christmases with my dad’s family, Easter with my dad’s family, and therefore Thanksgiving became a holiday my mom guarded closely.

We have only a few familial traditions around Thanksgiving, mostly regarding food: we have brown-sugar glazed ham instead of turkey (we all despise turkey), my dad makes always makes the stuffing, our sweet potato casserole has a crunchy-top instead of a marshmallow-top, and I make a vintage gelatin recipe from cookbooks dug out of antique stores and thrift dollar bins.

But, aside from that, our Thanksgivings are actually pretty simple - it’s really just a meal, card games as we fight against post-meal naps, and a lazy evening spent going back for seconds, thirds, and maybe fourths.

Maybe that’s why Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, too; at least for my family, it is a holiday that is uncomplex and idyllic in a world that is growing increasingly complex and contentious.

I hope that you get to experience a similarly peaceful holiday this week.

Ashley Hunter - Times Editor

From The Editor’s Desk – Home for the Thanksgiving holidays

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From The Editor’s Desk – Home for the Thanksgiving holidays

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Gadsden County Times – Legals – 11/24

Gretna man dies in vehicle vs. pedestrian wreck

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