I always love going home, but I especially love going home for Thanksgiving. It's my favorite time of year. The one holiday that is about thanking God for all He's done, and continues to do for us, for everything that he gives us, for everything really. Unlike Christmas and Easter which have been taken over by Santa Claus and that giant chocolate giving bunny, this holiday is pretty much still the same.

We always spend Thanksgiving Day with my dad's side of the family up in Tennessee. We have all the normal food, but the best part is Mother's pumpkin pies, A. Cindy's chocolate chip cookies, and whip cream for both. We always spend time together, and often play Baulderdash and or watch movies (either the Santa Clause or It's a Wonderful Life). It's just a great time together.

Since I no longer live at home, and see my family less often, my mother's side of the family get together most anytime I come up, so we were able to spend the Friday after Thanksgiving with them. It was so nice. We watched football, and ate, and talked, just hung out together really.

This year we spent some time listening to family and Church stories from the past. We spent sometime in Tennessee (me and Daddy) visiting with Uncle Nob. He is actually my great-great-uncle, and had been in the hospital this past week. I always love hearing stories of him and Daddy Elwin when they were growing up, and all the things they did to Poppa Mallard. Daddy always speaks so highly of Daddy Elwin (his grandfather) who died when Daddy was 12, that I always love to hear about him. We visited with him for about 2 hours and heard all kinds of stories about them growing up and found out that Uncle Nob was actually one of three Noble Alfred Mallards in the family (him a great uncle, and a cousin - weird huh?), and how he considered Ma'am (his grandmother who smoked a pipe) and Aunt Tish (his sister) to be "Mothers in Isreal" how they knew as much scripture or more than preachers and could take them aside and lovingly correct them when they were wrong, and even the story of how he joined the church after trying so long to be anything else but Primitive Baptist (especially funny considering that he's been a preacher as long as I can remember).

Then I got Grandmother and Granddaddy to tell me how they met and what life was like on the farm growing up on Friday evening. I even got to video some of that. By all accounts you would have thought that Grandmother and Graddaddy would never have gotten married, every time there was something in the way, the first time she was 12, then they dated but Granddaddy went into the service, then he thought she was engaged, then she really was engaged. It's a wonder that they ever got married.

I love to hear those sorts of family stories. One of the things that I wanted to do as a historian, was put together oral histories. For example, find a bunch of people who lived through WWII and have them tell me about life at home or at war, their beliefs, what got them through hard times, etc. Then put all those stories together, and write about what you could learn about the times and past in general from many individual stories. They just mean even more when those sorts of stories are from your own family, or Church members.

It was a great Thanksgiving.