Family and T-Day

If there has ever been a more beautiful Thanksgiving Day, I can’t remember it. November is always iffy in Texas. I can remember some great days when the weather was wonderful for our traditional family football game after the big meal. I can also remember days when we nearly froze our bottoms off trying to play outside after the meal. Because the UT vs. A&M game use to be on Thursday afternoon, we kids were banished to the outdoors so the adults could watch the game in peace. Now, we all head outdoors after the meal – to avoid doing the dishes.

There was nothing exciting about our T-Day other than having over thirty people eating dinner at Mom’s. While cooking on Wednesday night with all of the family coming and going and kids yelling and running through the house, I managed to forget the eggs in the pecan pies. I did remember before I baked them. We had to dump them back out of the pie shells and add the eggs. I got razzed pretty seriously for that little mistake. I probably deserved it. My little brother and I had a contest to see who could make our baby sister cry first. She cries over everything. It was her own son who made her cry first when he said he missed Pa. Of course, that was enough to make us all cry. My dad (Pa) died the weekend after Thanksgiving last year.

I am always amazed at how different we all are and yet we have such similarities. Most of us are fairly conservative, Christians, and type A personalities. My Austin-ite brother and his kids are the odd ones. His son wears the baggy pants, has tattoos, earrings, and a long ponytail. He looks like a gang guy. Jesse looks like "the girl next door". Yet, when they get together, they have a blast with each other. My cousin, Becky, was there this year. It has been about five years since we have seen her and some had not seen her since she was a baby and some had never met her. My sister is one of the ones who only knew Becky as a baby, yet she and Becky could be twins. They even act alike – scary. For all our differences, we really do like each other and always have fun.

I hope everyone else had such a good time and good food. This first picture is of one table of turkey eaters. Jesse is in the foreground. My sister is the pretty blond sitting next to my brother who is being covered up by a cousin.