A bit about Thanksgiving part 1

I especially wanted to go visit Rachel on Cape Cod to see her growing family before they go their adult ways as they have already begun to do. A natural progress that she is pleased to see, as am I; it changes the family dynamic. Here are my two grandsons arranging crudites as hor d'ouvers for the Thanksgiving feast which was at the home of friends of Rachel's. The hostess is a woman who loves to cook and had cooked until she threw her back out but the food was abundant and traditional -- exactly what Thanksgiving is supposed to be. I had an opportunity to be a part of a typical American feast day -- which is something I mostly avoid. [Who NEEDS three or four ymmmy deserts after a well heaped plate of turkey, ham, yams, cranberry relish, dressing, four veggies, etc.

I like the feeling of joining in a centuries old celebration of harvest abundance, although I may have been the only one consciously thinking about that. It was a gathering with full spectrum of generations, from infants to teens to 40-ish to three grandmothers, of which I was the oldest. Women busily working in the kitchen, since the hostess was, by then, seriously in pain, men standing about or going out to play on the ATVs while teen boys played video games and teen girls disappeared into their own cliques, probably talking clothes and boys. I couldn't help thinking similar scees were playing out in millions of American homes from there on Capd Cod - sticking out into the Atantic to California, from Florida to Alaska.
Across the USA a few moms of pretty little girl children had dressed their children like little princesses. This is Sophia in what should become an heirloom dress, hand smocked by mother Allison [wife of my daughter's brother-in-law], who has made other equally beautiful garments for Sophia. A kind of hand work relatively few undertake -- very wonderful -- and completed only av a couple of hours earlier.

I know a great many crafts are being pursued by suburban [and some city] women but I think few are are as deserving of heirloom status as such a smocked baby dress. And pretty little Sophia elated her mother with her first unassisted steps across the living room floor, a toddling little miracle, which has happened to all of us -- but only once did any of us take those first determined steps ignoring audience, just finding the best way to get from one place to another.