Thanksgiving wishes

To all my friends and family i wish you a pleasant Thanksgiving..That you get enough of your favorite foods, the conversations are pleasant at the table, and that you find contentment with your family and friends. 
My home is always open to those who may be far from their families, or choose not to be with their families.  My parents home always had a houseful, with my mothers siblings and their children, my grandmother, and other relatives.  Thanksgiving was and all day process.  It started the day before, with preparing the house, extra cleaning and shopping.  Then early Thursday morning mom would begin the turkey, and whatever else she had in mind.  Her siblings came with more food, there was always more than we could even begin to eat.  Plus we had to have not only pumpkin pies, but mince pie, and either cherry, pecan or apple.  The meal started about 2.  People ate and then went to do things, we watched football, played scrabble, talked, the adults drank, and then you might eat some more.  Eventually pies and coffee were served about 4- 5 hours after the original meal was started and family started to go home.  My parents didn't have  a dishwasher, but the dishes were always done, and put away before everyone left.  We had the usual family disagreements, arguments and comraderie. 
These same individuals came over 4 weeks later for Christmas eve.  Where upon we also tried to sing carols- you have never heard so many interesting versions of rudolph the rednosed reindeer, silent night, or  up on the house top among others that we joyfully destroyed from the original versions, from lack of memory.  These holidays at my parents home were truly communal.  Everyone did something to help prepare the meal, eat the meal, and also clean up the meal.  There was never a little red Hen syndrome.   I only remember a few times during the my childhood, and the life of my mother, that we didn't go to my mothers home for Thanksgiving and Christmas eve.  She passed from cancer when i was 23, and those famous holidays seemed to slowly dissapate.  She was the oldest of four, and somehow she was the one who kept things together.  I moved with my husband several states away, and we usually then celebrated with my in-laws.  It was not the same as my own parents but it had traditions just the same..A few years ago, i started to be the hostess for Thanksgiving.  Too much work for my husbands mother, although she insisted to still hold Christmas dinner.  Its never going to be like my mothers and my childhood memories, but all the same its a time to celebrate friends and family.
So to all of you - begin your own or continue your traditions, and celebrate those whom you love.  This year we will have one less at our table as my mother in law passed in June.   But in her own way, as my  mother is, she will still be with us...