All of my memories of Thanksgiving growing up, center around my grandparents’ farmhouse. This was where all of our holidays were celebrated, and since I moved before circumstances changed this tradition, this is where my memory of Thanksgiving will reside forever. I love that.

What I remember most is lots of family, which is probably why I like to surround myself with lots of people on this day every year.  Since the WHOLE family was usually present my Aunt Lisa would take the opportunity for us to draw names for Christmas Eve.  The idea is that all of the cousins would draw the name of another cousin to buy gifts for Christmas because there were way too many of us to buy for all.  Sometime after dinner my aunt would call each of us into the room to draw a name in secret.  How it actually worked went something like this:  Two cousins would go into the room together and tell Aunt Lisa to take both of their names out of the bowl so they could have one another’s name.  And don’t think the adults were any better.  They were a little less obvious, but they would draw a name and if they didn’t really OWE them this year, they drew again!  So, like if my mom felt like one of her siblings had gone above and beyond for her that year she wanted to repay them with awesome Christmas gifts. Yep, totally rigged Christmas drawing.

All Sunshine,

Lowi