Thanksgiving has passed, and everyone is reflecting on the fun times they had with their cousins, uncles, aunts, etc. They are thinking about the conversations they had and the dreaded questions they asked. They are thinking about the food they ate, and how there will be leftovers for days. They are thinking about how nice it was to see the rest of the family again. Thanksgiving was a fun-filled day, to eat and play, with all of your extended family.
But that is a little different when you have a broken extended family. I do not see my extended family very often, once a year at most, and it is usually just one aunt and uncle pair. We also do not talk, except for the occasional social media post or text message. Holidays can be a little lonely when it is just the four or five of us with a grandparent or two.
For starters, we do not make a feast, as it is only about six people we are feeding. We do not have a giant table where everyone has to squish together. We do not need to ask those dreaded questions since we are immediate family.
Thanksgiving is really not a special occasion for us. Sure, it is a holiday, but it is a lot more casual and intimate than what I imagine a normal relative-filled Thanksgiving to be. We laugh and have fun with each other, but we do not take big family pictures, or all cook together, or each brings a dish. There are not endless amounts of people to hug or rooms filled to the maximum.
In fact, it is pretty quiet. My family is made up of all adults, including myself. There are not younger cousins running around, one because we do not see them, and two because I am the youngest out of everyone. The only guest we have is my grandmother. She helps prepare food and makes Thanksgiving feel like a holiday.
Even though we do not have a full family gathering, just having my immediate family plus my grandma, makes the holidays feel more like the holidays. Sure, each chair is not filled, and we do not have endless amounts of food, but we do have the laughs that fill the room, and the love that only family can give, there is delicious food on the table, and the family fun games.
It may be different, and at times lonely, but family is really what the holidays are about. Although we only have immediate family, we still get the experience, just to a lesser degree. I know when I mention that I do not see my cousins or their families, people give me strange looks and they just do not relate to that. I understand that it is not the norm, but it is my norm. As long as I have the people around me that I love, it does not seem like anything is different.
