The First Empty-Nest Thanksgiving

We went from five around the table last year on Thanksgiving Day to two this year – my husband and me. The kids all found other places to be. One has moved too far away to come home for a 4-day weekend. The other two spent the day with friends. We could have pressured one to stay home but let her go as the others submitted their negative RSVPs. Dave’s extended family is in Florida. Mine is doing Thanksgiving with the "other side" today. I was going to have them here Saturday but my brother and sister-in-law offered to host the event so we’re going there.

This all started to fall into place a couple of weeks ago. That’s good. It helps to have a little notice that a holiday isn’t going to follow its usual pattern in order to bend my mind around it before it arrives.

I asked Dave what we were going to do for Thanksgiving. He suggested cutting firewood. That didn’t set real well with me. Gathering firewood has been a frequent activity lately. It seems that there should be something special to do on a holiday, something that we don’t do on ordinary days.

There are always stories about people who invite intellectually-stimulating guests to join them for Thanksgiving gatherings. I tried to think of all the intellectually-stimulating people I know who wouldn’t be celebrating with family and drew a blank. I thought about the less-than-stimulating people I know who might not have a family gathering but then remembered that hospitality is not exactly my best talent. I envisioned bored people sitting around in our livingroom with nothing to entertain them -- no television for parades or football, no stimulating conversation. Suddenly, the firewood idea started looking better.

We went through the list of possibilities. We’re not particularly interested in parades or football. There are no soup kitchens in the area where we could volunteer. The schedule at the movie theater is only mildly interesting – "Chicken Little" or "Harry Potter". We don’t hunt, although we do have four acres of woods. Cooking a big dinner seemed pointless with a church turkey dinner last Sunday evening and my family gathering on Saturday. Some people from church invited us to join them at a steakhouse 35 miles from home. Stuffing myself with restaurant food didn’t sound all that inviting. Television bores me. Sitting by the fire reading good books bores him. Playing games doesn’t appeal to either of us.

A co-worker told me this week that she and her teenage daughter were going to lounge around in their pajamas all day. That sounded cozy and relaxing. Maybe large family gatherings and turkey dinners on Thanksgiving are over-rated. Still, it seems like the day requires more than sacking out on the couch all day.

We came up with a plan. A tornado ripped through our county last week and did enormous damage along its 12-mile path. Fortunately, there were no deaths and only one serious injury, but 60 houses and 10 businesses and high-voltage towers and wires were strewn across the area. The roads were closed in the area for the rest of the week but opened up to sightseers last Sunday and we joined the gawkers, amazed by the awesome destructive force of nature. It was a spontaneous outing and we didn’t take our camera. We could go back and take pictures today. Then maybe an outing to the theater would round out the day.

We never left the driveway. Nor is the pile of firewood in the back yard significantly higher. We slept late and took naps. I caught up on some reading. We had sliced turkey from the deli on sandwiches for lunch and pot pies from the freezer for supper. I baked a pumpkin pie just because it was Thanksgiving, they're easy (with pie crust from the dairy case) and I wanted to have one in the house.

Thanksgiving seemed like a good day to tromp through the woods and I took some pruners with me to maybe tackle some undergrowth as I went. I ended up rescuing a few trees along the woods side of the yard from vines that were threatening to strangle them. It felt good to be out in the cold doing enough work to end up warm rather than cold. (Maybe I should have signed up for the firewood idea.) We watched part of a movie on the small television in the kitchen. We cleaned out an area in the basement where we’re going to install a small, modified furnace to circulate heat from the outside wood furnace that’s supposed to arrive next week. We talked to family on the phone. We were on the verge of heading out to where the tornado went through but didn’t quite make it out the door. When darkness arrived, an evening at home started to sound better than driving the 25 miles to the movie theater.

This probably sounds like a terrible Thanksgiving to someone with an extroverted personality who thrives on social activity, but it worked for us. It was a good mix of relaxation and accomplishment. We won’t end the week lacking for social interaction.

Like some other parts of the empty nest experience, it’s something that I think I could get used to but perhaps shouldn’t quite yet.