When I was a kid, my favorite holiday was Christmas, second only to my birthday. These parties were important because of the gifts I received. Oh, I was looking forward to that vacation and all the gifts I was going to delight myself with. And delight, I certainly did it to the extreme.
Then slowly things changed. I got married and we started having children. It was then that I discovered that Christmas was different. I was the one who paid for all the Christmas presents, not to mention the tree and decorations. I never realized how much Christmas cost. The older the children, the more expensive it was.
When Christmas is over, I’m officially broke. My New Year’s resolution is usually, “I’ll never do that again.” I keep it until Thanksgiving, which gets me out of my game.
I soon discovered a vacation that I could delight in. That holiday was Thanksgiving.
On Thanksgiving, there are no gifts to buy, so my checkbook remained closed for that holiday. Of course, I got the bill for the turkey we ate, but that usually came in August. Other than that, I could enjoy Thanksgiving without costing me an arm and a leg.
Also, this is the only holiday where I can neglect my diet and get away with it. I can sit around the table with my family and friends and eat to the contents of my “stomach.” Believe me; it takes a lot to get to that point of satisfaction.
I won’t say I abused the opportunity, although I do, I just won’t admit it.
I love saying, “Can I have another piece of pumpkin pie?”
The look that the kind lady of the parsonage casts in my direction is priceless. Usually I smile back.
Then I hear someone say, “Of course you can. Let me have your plate.”
The smile on my face at that moment stays with me for days, because there is nothing my wife can do with so many witnesses.
This is not to say that I won’t get in trouble on Thanksgiving. I don’t know of a party where I don’t get into trouble. For many years, Thanksgiving has been trouble free.
The Thanksgiving problem was inserted this year to my deepest regret.
A couple of days before our Thanksgiving dinner, I was sitting on my couch. The kind lady of the parsonage was in the kitchen preparing Thanksgiving dinner. I was not paying attention; I was watching something on TV.
Then I heard a strange word from the kitchen.
“Could you come over and help put the turkey in the oven?”
What took me by surprise is the fact that I have never been allowed to do any kind of kitchen work. Believe me, there is a story behind that. An invitation to come to the kitchen to work took me by surprise. But only for a second.
When I got up from my chair, a crazy thought began to dance in my head. I started laughing to myself. I wondered quietly, “Will it work?”
You don’t know something is going to work until you do that something. Thought I might catch my wife off guard.
I asked him to repeat and he said, “Can you put the turkey in the oven?”
I thought I heard it correctly and this was a confirmation.
“Of course I can.”
As I entered the kitchen, the oven door was open, I approached my wife acting like I was going to pick it up and put it in the oven.
It was all I could do to keep from laughing at this point.
As I got closer, I could hear her say, “Touch me and the wrong turkey goes to the oven.”
For a while, I couldn’t stop laughing and finally she laughed.
I was able to stop long enough to put the “peacock” in the oven.
He said something strange: “I am not going to thank you because you have already received enough thanks.”
I walked out of the kitchen and headed to my chair and heard her say quietly, “I better not read this in your column next week.”
Pretending I didn’t listen comes naturally to me. While evaluating that last statement, I came to the conclusion that she did not say that she could not write about it in my column. She just said it was better if I didn’t read it in my column. So I think I’m on good ground.
So, from turkey to turkey, Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful for good things. It’s a time to laugh at situations where any other time of the year wouldn’t be ridiculous.
Sitting at the Thanksgiving dinner table with all the family and friends around us, he was smiling. Then I looked at the kind lady of the parsonage. She looked back with “one of those looks”, shook her head and mouthed “no”.
This turkey knows when not to devour.
Peter understood this when he wrote: “For he who loves life and sees good days keeps his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit” (1 Peter 3:10).
I have discovered that there is a time to speak and then there is a time to wallow in silence.
