Best. Thanksgiving. Ever.

In the small town where I live, we have a Thanksgiving custom that I have come to cherish. Every holiday, our normally sparsely populated little area comes to resemble a real ghost town when several of us leave town to visit family in far-away places. Those few who remain usually gather in one of the neighbor’s homes to celebrate the holiday together. 

One year, as Thanksgiving was approaching, a devastating ice storm hit the entire left side of Texas. Over 1,100 power poles were brought down due to the weight of the ice on the lines, and because our neighborhood is at the end of the lines, ours was among the last to be restored. We were without electricity for 15 days and 10 hours.

During that time, I learned how to keep my wood-burning stove going all night and to keep foil-wrapped potatoes in the firebox atop the coals. I took advantage of the complete darkness and complete silence while I spent my evenings staring at the Milky Way stretched like a ribbon across the sky. I found it difficult to pick out the constellations because of the abundance of stars. 

Once each day, several people hauled a gasoline generator up to our community water supply to run the pump long enough to fill the 18,000-gallon tank that serves all of the local residents, both human and animal. We were on extreme water restriction, but we never ran dry. Because everything was difficult, we canceled Thanksgiving dinner. 

Then, two days before Thanksgiving, we changed our minds, acknowledging out loud that happiness this year was going to require a deliberate choice and quite a bit of effort from all of us. On Thanksgiving Day, all who were still in town met at the home of my friend Kathleen. She had a roaring campfire already going when her guests arrived and the table beautifully prepared with the entire traditional Thanksgiving dinner, including turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy and apple crisp for dessert. She had prepared the entire meal outside on her grill which we ate by candlelight in her lovely home. 

This will always be one of my most cherished holiday memories. What’s yours? Please feel free to share it on our Facebook page.