Invite a stray to Thanksgiving dinner
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Julie Carter

Here comes Peter Cottontail. Wait! Wrong critter. This is the holiday we give thanks and make a turkey a centerpiece.

OK, now I'm on track. Every year these holidays get closer and closer together and the memories blur from one to another. Where was I, who was there and what did we eat and why so much?

Was it only a year ago I was watching it rain in torrents through the holiday in Central Texas at the gathering of strays at Sam's Place? Unbuttoning the top button of my jeans at sundown to make room for yet one more of the 12 desserts sitting on the side table. That was a dangerous Thanksgiving.

I'm sure the year before that I managed to be somewhere as well. Somewhere where someone else had to cook.

Not so clever this year. My daughters reserved the day to converge on my home with their families.

Just to make sure it happened, they let me know sometime last summer that they were coming, ready or not. I thought I had taught them better.

Truly, it's good to have them come home again. It doesn't happen often and so we enjoy it. I get to play with the grandchildren while the daughters wash the dishes. See, I can make plans, too.

I am a product of my raising and holidays are no exceptions. Growing up, we were a big family with not a lot of options of places to go from our middle of nowhere home along the mountain range in Colorado.

So we pulled out the big oak table, added a half dozen leaves, drug up any thing a person could sit on, piled the table full of food and through the noise of a dozen kids and at least that many adults, we shared the day.

Those memories remain vibrant in my mind when many holidays since then are not so three-dimensional. I know my mother didn't set out to "make a memory."

She simply was following tradition with what she had to work with and in the process, signed herself up for a huge amount of work. I hope it matters to her that it made a difference for me and my life.

I'm fortunate to live in a community that still has those kinds of family values so it's not a rare sight. However, I have also lived long enough to see a fractured world with a good number of people with no place to go. In this, they find melancholy in a holiday that should be filled with reverent thanks and much joy.

I'm making my list for the grocery store, planning menus for the visit that will last several days. In the process, I am finding what I am truly thankful for and it's not the day, not the turkey and not the pumpkin and pecan pies, although all that certainly counts for something - usually about 5 pounds.

I am thankful for my family, thankful for this wonderful country we live in where we can work, buy groceries and have a home to find safety and warmth. Our abundance of bounty should never to be taken for granted.

The Pilgrims shared the first Thanksgiving with the Indians and each other. In it they found peace and new friendship. If you have those things to offer, don't keep them to yourself. Spread it around a little.

If your life is bountiful, share it. Invite a stray to Thanksgiving dinner. It could make a difference.

Julie, an occasional stray, can be found through her website at www.julie-carter.com