Thanksgiving Week 2014 Begins!

I was the one on the right.

It’s finally upon us. We’re only one month out from Christmas, and one of my favorite holidays on the US cultural calendar—one that doesn’t get nearly as much respect as it should—is days away.

I could give a rat’s giblets for the Plymouth Rock Pilgrims and the Nice Indians We Eventually Betrayed fairy tale. It’s the general principle of a designated family feasting day that appeals to me. Moreover, it’s a day about Gratitude. If nothing else, you hope to be thankful for eating a nice big meal among people you care about, while others are making do.

As someone who was one of those poor lonesome things making do in his 20s, you better believe I’m grateful to have a family to feast with. I’m thankful for my wife who knows how to cook such a feast, complete with real mashed potatoes (no out of the box shit for us) and from-scratch sweet potato pie. My adult daughter actually called to announce she would be visiting from Wednesday through Thursday so she could watch the good parts of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with her old man.

Yes, but my children are better looking.

I never thought I’d have children, let alone adult children who actually wanted to spend the holidays with me. You can’t buy something like that. 

We’re not rich, but we all won the More Tolerable Than Most Family Olympics. My heart goes out to people who don’t have a family situation like I have. There are a lot of grown men out there with more money than I’ll ever see in my life who can’t figure out how to get a woman to love them. Thing is, I wouldn’t know what to tell them. I’m just a guy who met his luck halfway. That’s all. 

I’ve also seen families who did all the right things by their children have their children turn out to be (at best) careless no-accounts. I’m an older guy, and I’ve seen enough to know that not one of the people or things I’m thankful for now had to happen. I met a good woman, we had good kids. Two decades and change down the line and I still can’t believe my insane good fortune.

For those out there winging it, just hoping to get through the day as I used to do after my mom died—if nothing else, you have yourself. That’s where it all starts. Families aren’t born. They are built.

They don’t necessarily have to be people you married or are blood-related to, either. I hope I didn’t have to tell you that. If I did, well, now you know.

You should be grateful I’m getting the sappy I Love My Family stuff out of the way early. I’m grateful for some other things, though, namely that the third book in my  Dead Silencer series is coming along gangbusters. I’ll be talking about this and more as Thanksgiving Week rolls along.

My Four Fluffies of the Apocalypse aren’t blood-related or married but they get along fine. Most of the time.