Thanksgiving is about the memories we create

Say what you will about me, but I've never failed to recognize the blessings I've been given in this life. Sure, 2010 hasn't been the greatest year for me. So what? I still have a wife I adore, four kids who are well-behaved at least twice a week, a roof over my head and, most important (knock on wood), we all have our health.

So, yes, I am grateful. Very much so. Just not grateful enough to clean my house, spend a fortune on groceries and cook a Thanksgiving meal for a dozen people. Been there, done that. Not this year, folks. This year, we made reservations at a local restaurant.

Oh, I know. It sounds lazy. It sounds unappreciative. It sounds, well, vaguely un-American. I keep picturing the end of "A Christmas Story," with the turkey ruined by the neighbor's dogs and the family forced to spend their holiday at a Chinese restaurant. Disasters like that are an appropriate reason to eat out on a holiday centered around family and home cooking. Not willing to pick a thousand toys off your dining room floor? Not so much.

Yet when I look back on Thanksgivings from my past, it wasn't the locale or the food that I remember but the experiences as a whole. As a kid, our house didn't have a dining room, so the family table would be set up in the kitchen. Thanksgiving dinner was a crowded, noisy affair conducted in a room made sweltering by hours of cooking. In fact, most years we would open the windows during dinner, hoping to bring in some cold, refreshing November air. Not that I ever thought of it as uncomfortable. It was all I knew, and to this day, I still smile at the memory.

Then there was the dinner my wife and I hosted only a month after our wedding. It was a declaration of sorts, an announcement to everyone that a new family had been created and that we wanted desperately to claim a part of the tradition for our own. That was the first time I ever cooked a turkey, and family and friends sat down to eat off our wedding china at a table set with candles, wine and linen tablecloths.

It was the first and last time we ever used that china, and before dinner was through, a friend of ours accidentally started a fire with one of the candles. It was also at that Thanksgiving dinner that my grandmother, an affectionate woman who was nonetheless as prim and proper as a Quaker, famously told the room an off-color joke about my grandfather. You could have heard a pin drop in the awkward moment before the table erupted in laughter.

Best Thanksgiving memory. Ever.

(By the way, while we're on the subject: I know I was married young, and I don't fault my family and friends for hedging their bets and skimping on the wedding gifts. But it's been 15 years, and if any of them should read this, I think it's about time to make amends. I certainly wouldn't turn down a dishwasher. Heck, I'd settle for a new blender.)

Nearly a decade later, we had my wife's grandpa and father over to our apartment for a small, private dinner. Because that was the day my wife really, truly wanted to impress the men of her family, our stove decided to go on the fritz. The turkey finished cooking all right - but not before it spent more time in our oven than it had walking the Earth.

I'm not sure what Thanksgiving memory has been the most important to my kids. Twenty years from now, I'm sure they'll relate some tidbit to me that I'll barely recall, if at all, and I'll smile and nod and pretend that I remember it all like it was yesterday. I won't mention that I was too busy helping my wife prepare dinner, orchestrate seating and defuse personality clashes to remember the magic of the holiday.

Perhaps that's as good a reason as any to take our Thanksgiving on the road. Let someone else worry about the hustle and bustle. I'll worry about making new memories to treasure.

Happy holidays, everyone.