The Not-So-Traditional Thanksgivings of My Youth

The photo you see above is the classic Norman Rockwell painting known as “Freedom From Want”. He created this masterpiece in November of 1942, and it graced the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in 1943. It depicts what has come to be known as a traditional family holiday meal, and is the image many people think of when they think about Thanksgiving dinner.

It’s an image I always wanted to come true when I was a kid. I wanted my Thanksgiving to be in a house full of family, with a large table adorned with a big, beautiful bird, and all the fixin’s around it. The kind of Thanksgiving day where you get up and smell all of the wonderful aromas that are created when preparing a large holiday meal. The kind where my mom and my aunts would be in the kitchen laughing and talking while making each dish perfect, and my dad and uncles would be lounging lazily in the living room, while my cousins and I would be outside playing football until it was time to eat.

But in reality, the Thanksgivings of my youth were nothing like this. The classic depictions I saw in images like Freedom From Want, or on Thanksgiving episodes of television shows were a far cry from what I experienced. While it’s hard to achieve that level of Americana, I struggled to even reach what most people growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s knew as a traditional Thanksgiving.

The modern traditional Thanksgiving included watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, stuffing yourself with turkey, casseroles, and pies before drifting off to sleep on the couch watching the Lions or Cowboys play the traditional Thanksgiving Day football game. But in my world, that wasn’t a reality either…..continue reading in this week’s issue of This Nostalgic Life newsletter. Don’t worry, it’s free. Just click on this link to go there and finish reading this essay.

And that’s the way it was,
Mick