Sibling Assignment #44: An Unusual Thanksgiving Day: Snow, Grounded, and Barney's Restaurant

Raymond Pert gave the sibling assignment for the week. It was to write about an unusual Thanksgiving Day. We don't dress up our animals, but this picture seemed to match unusual! You can read Silver Valley Girl's here and Raymond Pert's here.

Growing up our Thanksgivings were spent gathered at a family friend's house. We didn't have any family close so it seemed natural to us. Sometimes my grandmother would travel up from Spokane (which seemed like a big journey back in the day!). The women all brought the food, visited, and worked in the kitchen while the men sat around the T.V. in the living room watching football and drinking beer. A big buffet was set up and there was more food then we could ever eat. I tried things at Thanksgiving that we never had at home because my dad didn't like many dishes. I remember the year the Broccoli/Cheeze Whiz/ Minute Rice casserole was the big hit when Dorothy brought it. I also remember Don's potatoes, lots and lots of jello, and fancy whipped cream that came out of a can. There were other kids close to my age. Growing up we spent the holiday looking through Sears catalogues, playing Barbies, listening to The Beatles, and gossiping about boys we had crushes on. I loved those Thanksgivings.

As my siblings and I grew older and left home we soon had our own spouses and homes. Often we would return home for Thanksgiving. Between marriages, divorces, boyfriends, girlfriends, the passing of my grandmothers, nieces, and the death of my father Thanksgiving was in constant change. During those years I always looked forward to being somewhere with family during the traditional holiday.


About eight or nine years ago JEJ and I were ready to travel to Kellogg to spend Thanksgiving with my mom. A winter storm had been predicted, but we didn't figure it would slow us down from traveling four hours to Idaho. It was a bad storm. It did slow us down. It was an unusual Thanksgiving as I gazed out at drifts of snow wondering what we would do. Stay home is what we did. We didn't have anything to prepare for dinner so we did the second unusual thing. A restaurant about ten miles away was serving a dinner. That is where we celebrated Thanksgiving. I remember how different it was. When I was younger I couldn't imagine why restaurants were even open on Thanksgiving. Who would eat there?

We ate at Barney's Restaurant at the highway junction. I remember how delicious the food was. It was a quiet atmosphere and we took time to be thankful for our many blessings. Driving through the snow on the return trip home we recalled how unusual this holiday was. It wasn't such a bad thing. Yes, I missed seeing family, eating Mom's great food and leftovers, but we survived. Now we have stayed at our home for other Thanksgivings for various reasons. It doesn't seem so unusual now.
This year we will celebrate in a somewhat unusual way again. My sister's family and my mom will be joining us at our home for Thanksgiving. That has only happened one other time since I have lived here in northeastern Washington. Let the countdown begin!