Guest Blog: Hungry for Thanksgiving

“Forget all the other bready options on that buffet table and give me the weird-looking celery-studded stuff. So GOOD to get a bite of stuffing, a bite of turkey and gravy, and a bite of cranberry sauce all mixed up together in your mouth!” – Excerpt from Hungry for Thanksgiving

‘Tis the season for guest bloggers!

This holiday season, I am thankful for my amazing group of blog collaborators who continue to inspire and amaze me with their incredible writing abilities, and wonderful stories.

Here’s a guest blogger, the sassy Mim, who gave us a personal perspective on death that was a quiet little blog entry but was packed with meaning and was incredibly moving. I always learn from her (especially lately — on a personal level, Mim is about as wise as they get) and I am so excited and honored to feature her again on Welcome to Adulthood. Did I mention that Mim is about to jump into the world of blogging? Her blog will be launched next week. Stay tuned right here for all the juicy URL details.

I am also excited to feature a guest blog from two of my favorite ladies at 2GirlsonaBench, Tricia and Siana. Stay tuned, because after the holidays we will kick off our first blog in our Inhabit series from two little ladies that you will not be able to get enough of. (Luckily, you can amuse yourself for hours on their blog.)

But for now, enjoy this little diddy courtesy of Mim that is so good you can almost taste it. Happy Thanksgiving!

Hungry for Thanksgiving

by Mim

When I was a kid, my family celebrated Thanksgiving at our church by helping serve a community meal. I don’t know if we ever had a conversation about the great effort to feed the hungry on the holiday that’s all about gluttony and counting blessings. We just showed up, cooked, served, smiled. Seems maybe there should be some great life lessons in there somewhere. But really, for me, Thanksgiving has mostly always been about the food.

Mom would get up early and, following Grampy’s recipe, she’d sauté celery, onions and poultry seasoning in Crisco until the whole house smelled festive and edible. Before we kids had finished our Frosted Flakes, she had stuffed the huge bird and heaved it into the oven. And by the time we arrived to deliver the finished, golden-crisped turkey to the fellowship hall kitchen, we were bouncing off the walls from the anticipation of eating the magnificent thing. (…)

Thankfully there was plenty for three excited kids to do before Emmanuel Church’s Thanksgiving Dinner. Putting up decorations. Mixing iced tea. Setting tables. Swiping olives off appetizer trays when no one was looking. All the while surrounded by that amazing turkey smell!

When you’re feeding 60 or 70 people – members of the church family and folks from around town who either can’t afford a special meal or don’t have any family to share it with – you need more than one turkey. My mom’s delectable turkey-lurkey joined several others cooked in similar manner in my friends’ homes. And of course there were huge batches of mashed potatoes, bowls of buttery corn, green bean casseroles and a great variety of stuffings.

Faced with all that food, you’d think a kid would go crazy sampling everything. Not us. There were very few of Mom’s meals my sister and brother and I were more fanatical about than her turkey and stuffing. Forget all the other bready options on that buffet table and give me the weird-looking celery-studded stuff. So GOOD to get a bite of stuffing, a bite of turkey and gravy, and a bite of cranberry sauce all mixed up together in your mouth! Thank you thank you thank you!

Interestingly, there was almost always some of Grampy’s stuffing left over after the big meal, so maybe it wasn’t as appealing to the masses as it was to my family. But I only saw personal benefit in that. Black Friday turkey and stuffing sandwiches, anyone?

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(Photo via Adrianeden on Flickr.)