The Tale of Two Thanksgivings

The original plan for Thanksgiving this year was to have quite a few of the kids home for the holiday.  It was going to be nice.  But then life happened. Heidlebeere had put her house on the market and it sold quicker than anyone could have dreamed it would sell.  Then the process of closing on the sale began and Heidlebeere learned that they would need to be out of the house by November 30th.  That was compounded by difficulty in finding a new place to move into. When all the stars had finally come together and lined up, it looked like she was going to have to spend her Thanksgiving vacation moving.  No joy, but you do what you have to do. So Erdbeere suggested that we take Thanksgiving, such as it could be in the middle of moving, to Heidlebeere's house so we could give her a hand; she put our thoughts into words.  We took a quick inventory and found that, while not everyone would be able to make that work, those that could had no trouble at all with that little alteration to the holiday.  And that is how our Thanksgiving this year came to be bifurcated.

For those unable to go to Heidlebeere's, we had a Thanksgiving celebration on the 10th at our house.  Same feast, different day.  We had Schwartzbeere, Maulbeere, and Himbeere over and had turkey with all the trimmings, except the sweet potatoes.  We totally forgot the sweet potatoes.  They were in the fridge all ready to go but nobody remembered to get them out and cook them.  Ah, well. 

Everybody pitched in and helped get everything ready.  Quite a crowd in the kitchen but we made it work.

Deviled eggs were never a part of Thanksgiving when I was growing up but somehow it became a tradiiton with the next generation.  And a delightful addition at that!

Schwartbeere was put in charge of carving the fowl and did a very nice job at it.

Grandma was in charge of keeping the youngest addition occupied while everything was readied ...

... spelled occasionally from that arduous job by Grandpa.  Being the grandparents definitely has its advantages.

Pretty soon everything was done and ready.

Maulbeere even got extra fancy with a veggie tray!

I'm always amazed at the planning, preparation, and timing that gets it all to the table together, at the right time.  Like an orchestra, all those instruments coming in together to hit the right note together, at the right time.

Brombeere likes to set the table up nice for this once a year meal.

It is times like this that I'm extra mindful of how blessed I am, how blessed we all are.  Surely God is good.  Everybody gathered 'round and it was every bit as yummy as it looked.

As Schwartzbeere has always said, there's the dinner shelf and a dessert shelf.  So no matter how much dinner you eat, there's always a place for some dessert.  And because tastes vary so widely, there are always a large assortment of pies to choose from.  I, of course, had the cherry pie, along with some ice cream.  Everything else pales in comparison.

The next two weeks just zoomed by and pretty soon it was time to head for Heidlebeere's place.  Because we were unsure of what was still unpacked, we took way more than normal.  Kitchen stuff for cooking, bedding for sleeping, and other things to help with the move.

Including our trailer.  It isn't real big but it would help.

So pretty soon we were loaded and on our way.  Thanksgiving at Heidlebeere's house was pretty simple.  It was in the middle of all the moving that was going on.  Brombeere fixed a non-traditional meal of spaghetti with some side veggies that we figured the kids would eat.

We had hauled a load of stuff in the trailer over and while we unloaded and unpacked, Brombeere fixed lunch.

By that time of day, everyone was getting a little hungry and the menu went together very quick and easy.

Not quite as eye-appealing as a traditional Thanksgiving meal.  Also not served with all the trimmings and show of a normal Thanksgiving day feast, but it was every bit as good.

We thought we may be enjoying the first meal eaten in the new home but Heidlebeere said she had stopped by a day or two before and had pizza.  So we couldn't claim the first meal.

But it was the first family meal, with everybody there!  That counts, right?

So we sat around, on the floor because none of the chairs had been moved over yet.  We rested and had lunch and it was very nice.

Seating was wherever you found a spot.  Me, I opted for the stairs.

Maybe it was spread out a bit, because we didn't have the customary pie for dessert until later in the evening when we got back over to the other place.

But there was pie, and it was good!

So, yeah, that was the second Thanksgiving feast, in all its glory.  The move, which was the real reason we were there, began for us the day before.  We arrived on Wednesday to find Heidlebeere had already done a bunch of packing and cleaning.

So it wasn't a whole lot of work to get up Thursday morning and load up a bunch of stuff and throw it on the trailer and in the cars.

Once loaded it didn't take very long to drive to the new place.  She wasn't moving very far.

She was moving into a cozy little house several miles away from the old place.

So we pulled in and began unloading.  Once all the stuff we'd brought on this trip was in the house Heidlebeere set about unpacking it while lunch was being fixed.

The kids quite liked the tire swing hanging from a big tree in the back yard.  The one trip was pretty much all that got done that day.  At least, as far as loading and moving stuff to the new house.

Back at the old house, packing still went on and the next morning furniture began coming apart.  Beds, tables, and stuff like that which had to be broken down in order to get it out the door and on the truck.  That whole process was supervised by Heidlebeere's cat.  She seemed to always be nearby and out of the way.  Well, most of the time, anyway.

One of the things that was lost in the move was a tooth.  You know how there is usually something or another that gets lost or broken when you're moving.  This time it was a tooth.

The second trip over, on Friday, was during the rain and after dark.  So the mud puddles were hard to avoid.  A little bit of mud got tracked in.  But fortunately mud cleans up pretty good.  We just had to  make sure we weren't tracking it all over the house.

Saturday was the big move day.  That's' when the help and the truck arrived.  By that point, pretty much everything was boxed or bagged and ready to go on the truck.  But even at that, it still took a few hours to get it all out and into the truck.  You have to arrange it as it goes in so that it will all fit.  At one point we actually thought we had more truck than we needed.  But by the time the last few things went on it turned out that the truck we had was just right.

And about that point, the inside of the house was getting to look pretty empty.

With all the stuff out and gone, houses seem pretty empty and have that echoing sound.

Then it was back over to the new place again to unload it all.

Fortunately, we had the perfect day for moving.  Last night's rain had gone and the ground was pretty dry.

So we backed the truck in and began unloading.  As with the loading, the kids were pretty good about helping.

Unloading always seems to go faster than loading.  It wasn't long before everything was off the truck, out of the trailer, and out of the cars.

Then all that was left was the job of unpacking.  Arranging, rearranging, and rearranging yet again in some cases, to get everything where it was going to be when put away.

A lot of the kitchen was mostly done by this point because a lot of the first stuff to get moved was kitchen stuff.  But still, the kitchen was an easy place to set things down as it came in off the truck so there was still plenty to do.  Plus the kitchen itself had to be arranged and, yes, rearranged as things found their final resting place.

Like the house she was moving out of, the house Heidlebeere was moving into had some stairs.  Fortunately, not as much had to traverse the stairs in the new house.

Once everything was in the house then we began putting the big stuff where it was going to go.  That was where all the rearranging came in. Heidlebeere had to try a couple of arrangements to find the one she liked best.  By the time things began to land everybody was getting tired.  It had been a long day.

When Heidlebeere sat down and began to play her piano we knew she was beginning to feel like she was going to be able to settle there.

Making it her own.

This, actually, was one of the more memorable Thanksgivings I've ever enjoyed.  I don't feel bad about spending it this way at all.  In fact, spreading it across a couple of weeks was kind of fun.  And it was nice to be able to help Heidlebeere get moved and begin getting settled.