Psgetti
My parents grew up in California. They moved to the East Coast in 1968, and apart from a yearly visit back to California to see the grandparents, we have been without extended family close by ever since.
My parents found, through playgroups and neighbors and library visits and preschool, their own kind of local family. The four of us who comprised my nuclear family and two other families, whose own biological families lived far away as well, formed a new kind of family. The seven kids in this family are stair-stepped in age; right now we're 43,42,41,40,39,38, and 37. When we first met, the eldest of us was 4, and two were mere twinkles in parents' eyes. We are all married, and most of us have kids of our own now. And we, the children of the new family, live within a few hours of each other, but we're not just a few blocks away, as our parents were when we were growing up.
Until I got married and began to alternate Thanksgivings with TWGH's family, I celebrated every Thanksgiving with this extended family for twenty straight years. Sometimes we'd go away together, other times we'd just spend the entire day together at one or another's home. Thanksgiving, to me, became the symbol of what family can and should be.
But families change and with those additions and subtractions come limitations and obligations and new interests, yet we mostly manage to assemble every other year for Thanksgiving together. This year is one of those years, and except for my brother, who will be with his wife's family, and one other of the "original kids" who is living in Germany with her husband and children, we'll all be there. This Thanksgiving is also the first Thanksgiving in two years that hasn't been at my house, and for which I have to do almost nothing - maybe bake a few pies. I keep waiting to feel sad that I'm not hosting, because I love to have my house filled with happy people, making and sharing food and laughter and music and memories.
So last night, near the end of Wednesday Spaghetti, we were in the kitchen finishing off the wine and picking at the leftover dessert crumbs, and one of my neighbors remarked, "Wednesday Spaghetti feels like being at your favorite cousin's house. Everybody is just being themselves and kids are running around and it's so comfortable."
When I think about what I want to give my children most, it's the opportunity to make and share the memories that will sustain them now and for the rest of their lives. I don't think I knew, even just a few years ago, how one's family grows. Or maybe more accurately, how many opportunities, even those that come out of a box of noodles and a jar of the cheapest sauce on the shelf, there can be to grow that family.
Wednesday Spaghetti, which happens at my house more or less once a month, is an all-inclusive equal opportunity shindig. If you are local and are interested in knowing when we do this, send me an email or leave a comment that says, "HEY! I wanna eat psgetti!"
My parents found, through playgroups and neighbors and library visits and preschool, their own kind of local family. The four of us who comprised my nuclear family and two other families, whose own biological families lived far away as well, formed a new kind of family. The seven kids in this family are stair-stepped in age; right now we're 43,42,41,40,39,38, and 37. When we first met, the eldest of us was 4, and two were mere twinkles in parents' eyes. We are all married, and most of us have kids of our own now. And we, the children of the new family, live within a few hours of each other, but we're not just a few blocks away, as our parents were when we were growing up.
Until I got married and began to alternate Thanksgivings with TWGH's family, I celebrated every Thanksgiving with this extended family for twenty straight years. Sometimes we'd go away together, other times we'd just spend the entire day together at one or another's home. Thanksgiving, to me, became the symbol of what family can and should be.
But families change and with those additions and subtractions come limitations and obligations and new interests, yet we mostly manage to assemble every other year for Thanksgiving together. This year is one of those years, and except for my brother, who will be with his wife's family, and one other of the "original kids" who is living in Germany with her husband and children, we'll all be there. This Thanksgiving is also the first Thanksgiving in two years that hasn't been at my house, and for which I have to do almost nothing - maybe bake a few pies. I keep waiting to feel sad that I'm not hosting, because I love to have my house filled with happy people, making and sharing food and laughter and music and memories.
So last night, near the end of Wednesday Spaghetti, we were in the kitchen finishing off the wine and picking at the leftover dessert crumbs, and one of my neighbors remarked, "Wednesday Spaghetti feels like being at your favorite cousin's house. Everybody is just being themselves and kids are running around and it's so comfortable."
When I think about what I want to give my children most, it's the opportunity to make and share the memories that will sustain them now and for the rest of their lives. I don't think I knew, even just a few years ago, how one's family grows. Or maybe more accurately, how many opportunities, even those that come out of a box of noodles and a jar of the cheapest sauce on the shelf, there can be to grow that family.
Wednesday Spaghetti, which happens at my house more or less once a month, is an all-inclusive equal opportunity shindig. If you are local and are interested in knowing when we do this, send me an email or leave a comment that says, "HEY! I wanna eat psgetti!"
Posted by Well Read Hostess at 11/19/2009 11:01 AM 
Categories: Wednesday Spaghetti
Tags: family Wednesday spaghetti neighbors Thanksgiving
Categories: Wednesday Spaghetti
Tags: family Wednesday spaghetti neighbors Thanksgiving
That's it! That's what it felt like, like I was at a favorite relatives' or something. But you also have a way of making people feel at home!
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that's what I like about it too.
no stress. just comfort
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So, if I visited and it wasn't a Weds, could we pretend it is?
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