Thanksgiving Pasts
Oh, Hello Thanksgiving 🍂
It’s the official day when Christmas music blares through the house without apology—loudly enough I credit myself on resurrecting the Queen herself. Singing at the top of my lungs as if Mariah Carey and I share a vocal coach, because in the reality of my kitchen, we absolutely do.
By 8 a.m., the first mimosa is poured. The twenty-pound, bacon-wrapped bird begins its slow dramatic roast. And the entire day stretches ahead like a warm glittering promise.
This was my Thanksgiving routine for the better part of fifteen years, always hosting.
I entertained partly because I loved it… and partly to appease the people in my life at that time. But mostly, I did it for my kids. My tiny humans with even tinier stomachs who I insisted on filling until they couldn’t possibly take another bite—right before letting each of them choose a dessert that Mama would bake with love, chaos, and questionable levels of butter.
We had staple dishes that reappeared every year, a family culinary tradition passed down mostly from my mother—plus a graveyard of magazine-clipped recipes I spent years tweaking to perfection.
I’d start the weekend before:
Baking. Stirring. Planning.
Tuesday was all about side-dish prep.
And Wednesday? The annual “Friends-giving,” which inevitably ended with someone fighting about something ridiculous—leftovers, burnt rolls, or the eternal trauma of St. Paddy’s Day corned beef.
But somehow, it always worked. It always felt like home.
My kids and their dessert obsessions became a holiday saga of their own:
• Olivia and her chocolate pecan pie—eventually requiring two. One just for her.
This year? I’m making none. Life shifts. Traditions evolve.
• Andrew and Brady lived for lemon-anything and banana-everything.
There was the legendary lemon cheesecake with blueberry compote, still requested every couple years. And the banana pudding with a Nilla Wafer crust that could make a grown man weep.
• Brandon, who is never simple—except in dessert taste.
He bakes berry pies like his mama, gifting them to coworkers and family like edible love notes.
• And Donovan.
A certified whore for Holiday Spice Cake—layered, extra fluffy, smothered in the dreamiest vanilla buttercream I’ve ever whipped into existence.
But time… she’s a slippery little magician.
The years drift.
The requests get fewer.
And my kids—my babies—are no longer babies.
They’re adults now.
Living across three different states. Spending Thanksgiving with their partners, their in-laws, their chosen families. Building their own rituals, their own kitchens, their own versions of “home.”
And honestly?
It’s bittersweet in the most beautiful way.
Because here I am, sitting in my new home, new love, with new traditions, realizing something important:
It’s okay to start anew.
To build new traditions.
To release the version of Thanksgiving I clung to for so long and allow something softer, quieter, and more mine to take shape.
Happy Thanksgiving, from my heart to yours.
May your day be full of warmth, wine, and whatever version of “home” you’re ready to create.
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