Tradition

Just completed my share of the food preparation:  cranberry salad (which nobody eats but everyone insists we must have it - after all my mother always served it - with mayonnaise on lettuce - and nobody ate it then either!  Pecan pie - Luke's request.  Sweet potatoes and apples baked together - (recipe Sara cooked a couple weekends ago and we agreed it had to become a Thanksgiving staple).  Gravy (actually made ahead of time with chicken drippings and hard boiled eggs included but no gizzard, liver, etc.).  Collards (a new addition a couple years ago when we discovered everybody loved Jaquie's collards).  Cornbread (for the dressing which Luke and others will put together tomorrow.0  Ambrosia (not the kind my grandmother made with real oranges - how I loved watching her peel the oranges with a paring knife and get ALL the white off along with the spiral of peel.  Instead, this is canned mandarin oranges, crushed pineapple, tiny marshmallows, coconut and sour cream - with a bit of yogurt thrown in for good measure - but I won't tell the family!  Tomorrow comes the injected turkeys (two this year - the children are all grown up now and they do EAT) and baked ham - whipped cream (for what? - just to eat) and cherry o'cheese pies (made by the kids), and oh yes, the chex mix I made a couple days ago - already we're eating on that - a family tradition from waaaaaayyyy back.  Right now Luke's family has gone into town to lunch at Skin's - one of his family traditions dating back to Clemson life.  Tate's family is on its way from Atlanta.  Tonight, a trip to the Highwaty 25 Drive-in theater a recent tradition from about 4 years back.  And, so it goes.  …….How can anyone NOT love Thanksgiving and family and actually having everyone together - all ten of us!  The kids sleep in the Yogatorium -all five of them, Tate and Wendy get the Love Shack (cabin) this year, and the rest of us in my cottage.  It's great fun communicating between three buildings!!!  Time's up - they're back from town.