Tag Archives: Thanksgiving

A father’s Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a day for Turkey and mashed potatoes, parades and football, family togetherness and the alcohol that an entire day confined with family requires. And if there’s any time left over from all of this, it’s the chance to steal a moment to be thankful for something.

The Canadians have their Thanksgiving in October. I don’t know if this is because they are more eager to be thankful or because they are hungrier for turkey. Probably both, since nothing builds a healthy appetite faster than digging down deep to cough up a little gratitude.

In order to make sure that I have a good appetite for Thanksgiving dinner, I’ve composed a list of things I, as a father of three young boys, am thankful for.

  • I am thankful that our house has lots of wallpaper nobody likes. This makes the crayon drawings on the walls much more aesthetically pleasing.
  • I am thankful that, for going on 10 years now, I have been too lazy and cheap to replace the ugly wallpaper. My plan to customize the existing paper is working out great.
  • I am thankful that babies can get away with mismatched socks as often as every day. New Baby is terrible at organizing his sock basket.
  • I am thankful that we live in an enlightened society where a man can cause a backup in the drive through, estimating the number of McNuggets needed inside his minivan, without being stripped of every shred of masculinity.
  • I am thankful for the following consonants: B, D, M, N, P, T and W. Without them, Buster’s conversation would be completely unintelligible.
  • I am thankful for all the vowels, because no one has to learn how to elevate the back of his tongue to pronounce them.
  • I am thankful for breasts for a multitude of reasons, but mostly because I don’t have to warm them in hot water for 10 minutes while a screaming, hungry baby wails for a little milk over here!
  • I am thankful for any device that helps me shave six seconds off the time it takes to warm a bottle.
  • I am thankful that I have so far been able to avoid any embarrassing outbursts of road rage in the car line at elementary school. It’s so important to set a good example.
  • I am thankful for generous children who are never too hungry to offer Daddy the crust.
  • I am thankful for every day we get through without Caillou.

But most of all I am thankful for:

A baby who is a good eater, a good sleeper, and a good smiler.

A toddler who is always helpful and quick with a joke.

A first grader who adores and protects his little brothers.

And the loving mother who brought them all into this world, and would gladly bring more, if old age, poverty, and slippage toward bedlam didn’t stand in the way.

Happy Thanksgiving!

thankful horse

That’s a pretty thankful horse, right there.

Thankfulness run amok

Yes, I have a list of things that merit Thanksgiving. But rather than the commonplace “family and friends,” I’ve dug deep into my psyche to bring out these gems formed under the pressure of my heavy soul.

Caillou’s static age

It brings me some relief from his annoying cartoon that Caillou announces he is just four in the intro to his mind-numbing show. When my son was three, Caillou was an older kid, and it’s always cool to hang around the older kids. Fortunately, Caillou is a Dorian Gray. Now that my son is five and Caillou is still four, I’m hoping he’ll realize what a drag it is to associate with such a whiny baby. I hope this happens before the pent up rage that has been building in Caillou’s repressed family explodes into violence.

Broccoli

I like broccoli. But that’s no reason to put it on this list. I’m thankful for broccoli because my children don’t hate it. It’s the only vegetable they willingly eat, these children who balk at corn. We eat broccoli almost every day. It doesn’t have that horrible husk that confuses their little mouths like corn and peas do. And carrots are orange. The God of little boys didn’t intend food to be orange (popsicles excepted).

A little broccoli snack

You have to eat a lot of broccoli to make up for all those peas, carrots, and beans you won’t touch.

Frozen Pizza

I grew up where pizza joints were run by ethnic Italians. I remember an old Mom or Pop needing one of their kids to translate orders to them. Their pizza was their pride. I now live in a region where pizza places are owned by franchisees with names like Gary and Todd. The pizza is baked on a conveyor belt. The locals may be shocked by this, but I like some frozen pizza better than a lot of the pizza I could order. Plus, I don’t have to talk on the phone to get a frozen pizza, and that’s a huge advantage.

Moms’ groups

I once read about a study (no doubt conducted by male sociologists) concluding that when a group of women get together, chances are good they’ll start complaining about their men. I’m no scientist, but I have noticed that my wife loves me more when she comes home from a womenfolk powwow. She gives me a big hug and kiss and thanks me for not being like So-and-So’s husband. Whenever I’m feeling a little deprived, I inquire if she’s got a meeting coming up. Husbands lamer than me are the best part of my personality.

Lady's group finalists

Enjoy your ribbons, ladies. There’s a homemade stew of crusty dishes and dirty underwear waiting for you on the kitchen counter. (Image: Harris & Ewing)

Public transportation

We rarely use public transportation. When we do, it’s like a Holiday. My boys love riding the bus. After a trip around town on an articulated bus, you’d think we just got back from Disney World. This great adventure costs about two bucks. When one of my sons is the Super Bowl MVP and somebody shoves a microphone in his face to ask, “You’ve just won the Super Bowl; what are going to do next?” he’ll say, “I’m going across town, on the twister bus.”

We love the twister bus

We love articulated (“twister”) buses so much, we bought our own.

Yeah, I’m thankful for family and friends too. I guess.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, now let’s talk about Christmas

One Saturday in the middle of October, the four-year-old came downstairs as I was making breakfast. He still wore his pajamas and had a groggy look about him. He stepped into the kitchen and, without troubling himself with the exchange of any top-of-the-morning niceties, asked. “Is it Thanksgiving?”

He was disappointed to learn that it was not. His disappointment stemmed, not from a particular childlike love of the thrill-devoid holiday known as Thanksgiving, but from a recently gained knowledge that Thanksgiving was an obstacle that must necessarily be removed from the way if Christmas were ever to come.

A couple of weeks before, I had explained to him that we would have Halloween first, followed by Thanksgiving. Then, it would get to be winter and Christmas would come. I can only attribute the fact that he forgot all about Halloween to the early hour of day, his sleepy disposition, and the proven fact that toys are more exciting than candy.

Well, if it weren’t even Thanksgiving yet, there was still time to go brush his teeth.

Today, I have good news for the boy, because now it is Thanksgiving, and that is practically the doorstep of Christmas. Winter is such an unreliable arrival that it is hardly worth counting, which means Christmas is up next.

Halloween

Thanksgiving

→Christmas!!!!←

All the lesser holidays are out of the way! Christmas is almost here! So let’s put this turkey to bed and start the countdown!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

P.S. I’m not telling him it’s Thanksgiving until after he brushes his teeth.

November calendar

Only one more page to go!