Daffy Duck's Thanks for Giving special

Hello again cyberspacers, how was your turkey day?

Personally, Thanksgiving is weird. I've got a lot of heavily skewed ideas on what it is and isn't supposed to be. For a very long time this holiday was spent with just my mother's side of the family which definitely added to the development of some of these ideals. Thanksgiving with them, for as long as I can remember, has always been a more than one day ordeal... sort of. For me for the longest time it consisted of waking up in time to watch the parade, and then sitting around and either coloring at the table, or playing in the playroom (This room had ceilings of five and a half feet at the most, and the walls were actually sloped.) that was up the attic just to remain out of the way mainly. All of our food was the home cooked, made-from-scratch sort of deal. My grandmother and aunts would do everything but the turkey, that was my grandpa's job, as far as I remember Him and my uncle Ricky spent the majority of the rest of the time watching football. The day after would be spent putting up Christmas decorations so technically for me, having Christmas decorations up before thanksgiving is even over is rather blasphemous.

Fourth grade was the first year ever that I spent Thanksgiving with my father's side of the family. This for me was a travesty. I already understood that things with my Father's side of the family were very different than what happened with my Mother's side. I knew that my Father's side had a much more polished uptight way of going about things than I was used to, and I also knew that to me, food never tasted as good from them as it did from the other side. So knowing this I was already expecting things to be not as good, but what happened actually left me appalled. That year for Thanksgiving we went out for dinner. It was safe to say that I was heavily unpleased with this event, no amazing smells coming from the kitchen all day, no overly busy house, no left overs to be eaten over the next several days, and definitely not the event that I had spent so many previous years loving. I was mentally throwing a fit on the sidelines, I was spending this holiday without what I regarded at this point as my real family, and they had the guts to change the routine of Thanksgiving that I had been following for years.

In retrospect I know that I was acting like a spoiled brat, however, at the time, and still partially now this is all I knew. For the multiple years I was always the only grandchild on my father's side of the family, and I will always be the oldest and at this point there at times is a sense of the fact that my grandfather is much happier to be around me than my other cousins due to the fact that I am no longer the rambunctious munchkin that they all are to him. On my mother's side of the family up until last Wednesday(For the most part that is, there is a step-granddaughter who turns nine on Sunday as well, but she hasn't been around our family for anymore than a year and she's actually turning nine on Sunday.) I was the only grandchild there as well. Last Wednesday Richard Emmett was born. He's the first boy and the third Richard in our family, when my grandpa heard that they had decided his name was going to be Richard he looked so proud. Our family is truly ecstatic that after almost eighteen years there is a new baby.

This brings me to the idea of giving thanks. This year I am completely and wholeheartedly thankful for my family and the joy that I know will be traveling amongst the family over the next several years, at times we may encounter difficulties, but together we are able to fight with the best of them, and they are my world.