Thanksgiving is coming and I WAS going to make a turkey, but things are hectic and my nephew won't be coming up from Florida after all...so, my brother and sister-in-law and I have decided to go out for Thanksgiving. No dishes, but no leftovers either. :(  The rest of the family is coming over afterward for dessert, so we'll still all be together, but it's gotten to be too big a crowd to all have a sit-down dinner together any more.  We have fourteen adults and ten teenagers and children, including son-in-laws, step children and girlfriends and boyfriends. I don't know how my grandmother got everyone into her little house for Thanksgiving (12 adults and 21 grandchildren!), but we used to do it when all of us grandchildren were small. Later we also had to subdivide.

The last time we tried to do it all at one place, we chose the largest one, my sister's house and had 2 turkeys. It was crazy-time! The next year we decided that Carolyn, with four kids and one son-in-law at the time would offer to have one or the other of my other sisters with two children each to her house and I or my sister-in-law would have dinner and invite the other sister. My mother took turns every other year, because by then my Dad was gone. It was too much for my mother to have it because by then she had suffered a stroke and while not paralyzed, she definitely could not cope with dinner, even with help.

Times change, but I guess the important thing at Thanksgiving is to be with your family and give thanks--even if it's only over dessert.