As a child, my favorite holiday was Christmas, second only to my birthday. These holidays were important because of the gifts I received. Oh, I was looking forward to that holiday and all the gifts it was going to delight me with. And delight, I certainly did it to the extreme.
Then slowly things changed. I got married and we started having children. It was then that I discovered that Christmas was different. I was the one paying for all the Christmas gifts, not to mention the tree and decorations. I never realized how much Christmas cost. The older the children, the more expensive it was.
By the time Christmas is over, I’m officially broke. My New Year’s resolution is usually, “I’ll never do that again.” I’m keeping it until Thanksgiving, which throws me off my game.
I soon discovered a vacation that I could revel in. That holiday was Thanksgiving.
On Thanksgiving, there are no gifts to buy, so my checkbook remained closed for the holiday. Sure, I got the bill for the turkey we were eating, but it usually came in August. Other than that, I could enjoy Thanksgiving without breaking the bank.
Also, this is the only holiday where I can neglect my diet and get away with it. I can sit around the table with family and friends and eat to the contents of my “stomach”. Trust me; it takes a lot to get to that point of satisfaction.
I won’t say I abuse the opportunity, although I do, I just won’t admit it.
I love to say, “Can I have another piece of pumpkin pie?”
The look that graceful lady from the parsonage gives me is priceless. I usually return a smile.
Then I hear someone say, “Of course you can. Let me have your plate.”
The smile on my face at that moment accompanies me for days, because my wife can’t do anything with so many witnesses.
This is not to say that I don’t get in trouble during Thanksgiving. I don’t know a party where I don’t get in trouble. For many years, Thanksgiving Day has been trouble-free.
Thanksgiving issues were inserted this year to my deep regret.
A couple of days before our Thanksgiving dinner I was sitting on my couch. The Gracious Lady of the Parsonage was in the kitchen preparing Thanksgiving dinner. She wasn’t paying attention; She was watching something on television.
Then I heard a strange word from the kitchen.
“Could you come over and help put the turkey in the oven?”
What struck me as strange is the fact that I have never been allowed to do any kind of work in the kitchen. Trust me, there is a story behind that. An invitation to come to the kitchen to work took me by surprise. But only for a second.
As I got up from my chair, a crazy thought began to dance in my head. I started laughing at myself. I wondered quietly, “Will it work?”
You don’t know something is going to work until you do that something. I thought I might catch my wife off guard.
I asked him to repeat and he said, “Can you put the turkey in the oven?”
I thought I heard her correctly and this was confirmed.
“Of course I can.”
Walking into the kitchen, the oven door was open, I walked over to my wife acting like I was going to pick her up and put her in the oven.
It was all I could do not to laugh at this point.
As I got closer, I could hear her say, “Touch me and the wrong turkey goes in the oven.”
For a while, I couldn’t stop laughing and finally, she started laughing.
I was able to stop long enough to put the “peacock” in the oven.
She said something weird, “I’m not going to thank you because you’ve already received enough thanks.”
I left the kitchen and went to my chair and heard her say quietly, “I better not read this in your column next week.”
Pretending I didn’t hear comes quite naturally to me. As I evaluated that last statement, I concluded that she didn’t say that she couldn’t write about it in my column. She just said she better not read it in my column. So I think I’m on good ground.
So from turkey to turkey, Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful for the good stuff. It is a time to laugh at situations that at any other time of the year would not be laughable.
Sitting at the Thanksgiving dinner table with all the family and friends around us, I was smiling. Then I looked at the Gracious Lady of the Parsonage. She looked back with “one of those stars”, shook her head and mouthed “no”.
This turkey knows when not to gobble.
Peter understood this when he wrote, “For whoever wants to love life and see good days, keep his tongue from evil, and his lips speak no deceit” (1 Peter 3:10).
I have found that there is a time to talk and then there is a time to wallow in silence.
