Thanksgiving is ALWAYS the Same - Jodi Kirkner

Thanksgiving has a good connotation for me. I like Thanksgiving.

Now, don't you start to think anything silly... I'm not one of those crazy aunts who dresses up in a turkey costume and follows you to school asking all of your friends, "And what are you thankful for, little Margaret?" 

I'm not even festive. I either spend Thanksgiving at home with my mom and dad and grandma (my only family remotely close to Lexington) or in Pennsylvania with my dad's ENTIRE family (whom my mom can't stand): my grandma, grandpa, 3 aunts, 4 uncles, all of their children, my cousin's boyfriend, my older cousin's pregnant girlfriend, and her two kids. But somehow, Thanksgiving is always the same to me. 

Why, you ask? Because I've always had a problem with my food touching, and every Thanksgiving I have to arrange my plate so that everything is touching a non-offensive item. For example, green beans can touch mashed potatoes, but NOT THE BREAD or it'll get soggy and green. Gross. The point is, this arrangement, no matter how many times I try, ends up with one similarity: my mashed potatoes always end up next to my sweet potatoes. It isn't that I necessarily want them together, but they just always end up there like that. Thanksgiving to me is one thing and one thing only: the single bite of potatoes between the two piles. The flavor of mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes that touched each other just a little bit is Thanksgiving. 

Call me crazy, but that's the whole truth. You could also argue that, for me, Thanksgiving is family effort on one big 1000 piece puzzle that never quite seems  to get any closer to done. I bet some of you also know the feeling.