Happy Thanksgiving and Christmas Memories

Written by Elizabeth Kimball

I grew up in a large family, which meant the holidays couldn’t be lavish, but my mother (who has degrees in architecture and interior design) could certainly pull together some amazing decorations on a shoestring budget. 

As a native Floridian, my falls and winters were hot or mildly cool. We didn’t have corn mazes, fields of pumpkins, apple cider mills, or Christmas tree farms to visit. Instead, we wandered through rows of already-picked pumpkins and visited Christmas tree lots—our enthusiasm undiminished—and took our seasonal treasures back home to decorate. At our house, Thanksgiving decorations were nearly as plentiful as Christmas decorations, and putting them up was a family affair. We would all pitch in to swap out the decorations between the holidays, and I remember one year when my siblings and I decided to get a head start on untangling the Christmas lights. We had the old-fashioned light strings—the ceramic C9 7-watt bulbs in white, green, red, orange, and blue—and we plugged them in to make sure they were all working. The strings meandered across the living room rug in beautiful, bright trails of light as we sang to Christmas records and untangled the lights—and melted 40 round spots into Mom’s navy blue oriental rug. That rug eventually became a comical reminder of holidays past, much like the artificial Christmas tree box that we decided to decorate in Sharpees while Mom was on the phone. (Unbeknownst to us kids, Mom and Dad had decided to return the tree, unopened, but instead we used it for decades and repacked it into its decorated box at the end of each season.) Tree-decorating happened after dinner, while Christmas records played and we drank hot chocolate. 

When my siblings and I were young, my parents alternated between driving to both sets of grandparents—my dad’s parents were three hours south, and my mom’s family lived five hours north. Thanksgiving morning, we’d turn on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. At my dad’s parents’ house, Grandma Loretta took care of the entire holiday meal and we helped set the table and clean the dishes. She took pride in laying every handmade dish on the table while it was still piping hot, and you’d better eat it while it was hot, too! At my mom’s family home, everyone helped with the Thanksgiving meal preparations. I made the mashed potatoes and the cheeseball. One of my sisters helped Grandma Iris make her special pecan pie. (Later, that same sister took over the tradition and continues to make Grandma’s pecan pie to this day.) My little brother made Rice Krispie treats. No one ever learned exactly how to make Grandma Iris’ biscuits, because she made them from scratch, without a recipe. We would always have turkey, cranberry sauce, and green beans. After the meal was finished and cleaned up, at my mom’s family home we’d go outside to play touch-football with the cousins, or if we were at my dad’s parents’ home, we’d take turns going for canoe-rides down the Punta Gorda canals with Grandpa Fred. 

After I grew up and moved out of Florida, I discovered the beauty and excitement of fall leaves, crisp fall temperatures, apple cider mills, corn mazes, and U-pick pumpkin patches. I lived in Michigan for a few years and while I was there I started a personal “best apple cider” quest. I visited the local cider mills with a few friends to establish who made the best apple cider. We tested it hot and cold, and also tested their fresh donuts while we were there. 

Christmas was always an exciting time—full of traditions. In addition to decorating and cooking together, it was exciting to shop for each family member. My dad’s only sibling lived across the country and couldn’t get to come home for the holidays very often, but my mom’s large family all lived within thirty minutes of my grandmother, so we would swap names with our cousins, aunts, and uncles, and the pile of presents under the tree—even at a rate of one present per person—reached the lowest branches. Between me and my siblings, choosing the perfect present for each other and our parents was an exciting event each year. We would do extra chores and save our quarters and dimes, and we would form alliances with other siblings to help us decide what to buy and where to hide our gifts from the other family members. Gifts were often home-made or purchased at the dollar store, but the time and effort spent choosing or making the gift was what made it so exciting. We often went to a candlelight Christmas Eve service and I loved to listen to the Christmas story and sing Christmas hymns in the dim, somber sanctuary. I would contemplate the miracle of Jesus’ birth while I watched the wax from my little candle pool on the printed green star in the center of the round white card protecting my hand. 

We even had a traditional Christmas Day breakfast; each family member picked out a pastry from the Publix deli a few days before Christmas, and we’d eat them as a family with scrambled eggs and bacon before opening our presents. I loved seeing my family members’ surprise and excitement when they opened the present I’d chosen for them. All the terribly difficult waiting and secret-keeping was over, and they were enjoying whatever I’d made or purchased. We always tuned in the Rose Bowl Parade, and Dad would tell us about the year he marched in the parade with the Michigan marching band. 

For me, the overarching joys of Thanksgiving and Christmas are being with family and celebrating the many blessings we’ve been given—starting with the birth of our Savior on that joyous night in Bethlehem. 

About the author: Elizabeth S. Kimball is the author of “The Gatlins Come to East Beach” which will be published in Volume II of By the Bay: East Beach Stories in 2017.