Thanskgiving and Family

October is the month that Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving. It's celebrator day always falls on a Monday, but most of our family up here actually celebrated it Saturday or Sunday.

We had two wonderful Thanksgiving meals this month. We celebrated it with Dan's family in Claresholm, Alberta Saturday. We had the traditional meal, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes...After dinner we played a really fun card game called "Fruit Salad"---and no, no one was throwing fruit around the kitchen. OK maybe it's a blonde thing but when they told me what they wanted to play, I invisioned having marchino cherries and peaches thrown at me, hahaha. We had a really nice time, even though there was no food fight.

Sunday we celebrated the holiday at another of Dan's family home in Raymond, Alberta. We had ham, stuffing, green bean casarole, salad (3 kinds), squash (I love sweet squash), scalloped potatoes---kind of traditional, alittle different than I'm used to, but again it was good food and good company.

Sunday every one was asked to bring a dish and a dessert. The dish we finally settled on was salad, which we had plenty of left overs. We like salads, so that was good as well as it's good for us.

Ok so we had to bring a dessert. So whenever I cook for someone I become a bit of a perfectionist---I guess what I mean, I want the food that I'm making to be the best any one has ever tasted----I know so unrealistic, but hey that's me.

So I had to make the perfect dessert. The recipes, would either be pumkin bars (so yummy), apple crisp (family tradition), or peanut butter cookies. So how do you decide which recipe will be worthy enough to bring to a family gathering. Pumkin bars couldn't be made becuase we didn't have enough cream cheese and it was Sunday and we don't shop on the Sabbath. It was down to the last contestansts. Apple Crisp or Peanut Butter cookies---

Apple Crisp is my families long time tradition and without my family being here, I didn't really feel like making it. The recipe that we use is one that my mom got from her, old Betty Crocker child's cookbook. The cookbook was her's when she was a little girl. So many times when I've seen or tasted Apple Crisp outside the home, it for some reason has oatmeal in it??? That's ok tasting, but I perfer our recipe---it's richer tasting---very few ingredients---apples, four, cinnamin, sugar, butter and water---yummy yummy!!!

So the Peanut Butter Cookies won out----I knew that at least one person would love them. These cookies are my husbands favorite. I knew if no one else liked them that it would be ok, because we would have left overs and Dan would eat them.

While I was preping the cookies I started to remember some of my earliest memories of my Gramma Witt. I remember sitting on the floor in her kitchen and being allowed to open all the cupboards that I could reach and taking out all the tupperwear and playing with it. I seem to remember her encouraging us (my cousin and me) to play with it all. Once there was a woman in the kitchen with us, I can't remember who it was, becuase I was too young, but I remember her trying to stop us from going into the cupboards and I remember Gram stoppng her and chidding her.

Gram never per say sat me down to teach me to cook, but what she did was make food in the kitchen while I was visiting. Oh yes some of her favorites; meatballs, soups, baked beans, pies, cookies, and any thing cottage cheese--honestly I think she had an opsession over cottage cheese. The first recipe she tried was home made Mac and Cheese---she found a recipe from a cookbook. I think I liked it the first time, but soon after that she changed it to make it "different"---ohm, yep different. Than there was the cottage cheese jello--that was a common holiday food item---oh don't forget the fruit with that. I'm not sure when, why, or how it happened but yes, "believe it or not" she made cottage chesse pie. To say the least I really don't care for the texture of this ingredient. But yep that was Gram.

While musing over the memories of gram in the kitchen and me making my cookies, I broke down in mighty sobbs. What a site it must have been to see, if any one had been looking. You see, Gram is now living in a nursing home, fading away phsyically and mentally and I'm so far away. I lemented that I missed her birthday this year, I didn't even get the opportunity to wish her a happy birthday.

When I started to cry I had a revelation----my family is a disfunctional family, hahahaha, well I've known that for a long time. What I finally realized, is that every one has some kind of disfunctional family....I mean what does disfunctional mean? It means that my family is different than your's, some of them act a bit different than your family members, so what, it's my family. I lay claim to my family, no matter how different they are. My family is a good family to be a part of. They are a small band of members. My uncle lives in Florida, my Gram and Mom live in WNY, my cousin (who raerly came to family gatherings) lives in WNY too, my Granpa Witt passed away when I was 16.

What my family gave me was unconditional love. They gave me an appreciation for; education, nature, service, prayer, church, scriptures, cooking, and being kind to others. So as we leave this month (October in Canada) of thanks and enter another month of thanks (November in USA), I say my thanks to my family for blessing my life so aboundantly. I say my thanks to my Heavenly Father for giving me my particular family.