~it's Thanksgiving after all~

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, a time when people stop to pause and give thanks for everything that they have as well as everything they have not.  We will probably all eat too much and when we step on the scales in the days that follow, that extra slice of pie or scoopful of mashed potatoes will tell on us big time.  I never get too worked up about that.

It's Thanksgiving after all.

Tomorrow we will have our dinner here with my sister Sherry and brother-in-law Wes joining us at the table.  As well, we plan to have two airmen from the nearby Air Force base as our guests.  We look forward to meeting them, filling up their bellies, and allowing them to have a "taste" of home for the holidays.   

Today I have been working on cleaning up the house and finishing up some last minute things that need to be done before tomorrow.  One of the things I wanted to take care of was to pull out the leaves on the table and take it from its short version to its much longer one.  After that was done, I put all 6 chairs around it as I contemplated which table covering to use.

It didn't take me all that long to make the choice.

Last year before Mike's Aunt Margaret passed away, she told us that she wanted us to take her dining room furniture to our house and continue to use it however we saw fit.  The drawers of the china hutch were filled with fine linens, many of them made by Aunt Margaret.  I peeked inside once we got everything home to Burkburnett from Olney.  I was amazed by the many fancy pieces of linen she had.  One in particular caught my eye.  It was one that she had hand crocheted on her own and it was absolutely beautiful.  I could tell that it had not been used much and probably had been tucked into the drawers of the china cabinet for much of its time. 

I took it out, admired it, and then promptly folded it back up again and nestled it safe within the drawer.  I realized how well taken care of it had been and that it probably had never even been used more than once or twice.  I wasn't about to get it out and take the chance of ruining it somehow.  Rather, I chose to keep it in its pristine condition to honor the wonderful woman who had made it.  

I hadn't seen it for over a year.

This morning as I began to ready the dining room table for tomorrow, I had to stop and think about some type of table linen.  I wandered over to the drawer and began to rummage through the stacks and stacks of neatly pressed tablecloths, dresser scarves, pillow slips, and tea towels. It didn't take long before I found it once again, that beautiful crocheted piece that I had swore I'd always keep nice and never use.  Sure enough, it appeared just as nice as the day I put it away last October.  

Yep, there it was.  
Never used one time.

I got to thinking about something.  Why was it that I thought not using the tablecloth would honor Aunt Margaret?  What is it about stashing things away to keep for the good that makes it an honorable thing to do in the first place?  Hadn't it been made to use?  If not, what in the world was it made for?  For the life of me, I couldn't think of one reason at all.  My hands lifted it up and in no time, I had spread the beautiful piece of handiwork atop the red checked farmhouse table cloth that I had chosen to use.

It looked beautiful and happy to finally be loved.

There will be six of us at the table tomorrow, enjoying a delicious meal and the company of one another.  There will be two young men who join us who cannot go home this time for Thanksgiving Day with their families.  We shall make them feel at home with us and even though we are not the family that they are used to, we are ones who are happy to have them here.  We may spill a little gravy or a sliver of pumpkin pie on the cloth covered table.  Someone might accidentally upset their glass of tea or cup of coffee.  There's the chance that the table cloth might not fare the entire meal without a stain or two or even three.  

That won't even matter.

No belonging of ours, be it the tablecloth or a piece of fine glassware or anything else of value will ever be worth more to us than the good people who join us for a meal of thanks giving.  I believe Aunt Margaret would be happy to know that we will utilize her special piece of handwork to grace the top of the table.  I'm glad that I have chosen to use it and will be thinking of her during the meal tomorrow.

I've known far too many women, my own mother included, who refused to use the beautiful things that had been given to them during the course of their lives.  They instead would tuck it away into the dark abyss of a closet or bureau drawer, only to be found after they had passed on while their children cleaned out their mother's house.  That seems rather sad and even almost wasteful.

I intend to stop that practice tomorrow.
May my own children find my things well loved when my time on earth is through.  

Aunt Margaret passed on about 6 weeks after this photo was taken in Olney, Texas.  Mike and I were very blessed to get to Texas in time to spend an entire summer with her.  She was one of the reasons that we chose this area of the world to live in.  Our feet are planted pretty firmly here now and the name of "Renfro" is written in the red dirt of the land.

We didn't have much time, but at least we had the summer.