To say this has been an interesting week would be an understatement.

I had a lot of plans:  I was going to work 2 days, take Wednesday off–get totally ahead of the game for Thanksgiving–have a relaxing Thanksgiving, spend Friday doing Christmas decorating with my 4 oldest granddaughters and then Saturday working on organizing the garage and drawing…well you get the picture.  And in between all of that I was going to post an inspirational Thanksgiving article, maybe even two, and get back on track…

Then, in one fell swoop, everything went sideways:  I received a call on Tuesday afternoon from my son stating that he was on his way home to take my daughter-in-law, Tina to the hospital because she was experiencing contractions that wouldn’t stop.  She was at 33-weeks-5-days.  Just below the point at which they no longer stop labor (34 weeks).  So…I left work and went to their apartment to stay with the 3 older girls.

To make a long story short, Tina ended up staying in the hospital until Friday while they made sure everything was stable.  Their ages are 9, 5 and 2, and they handled everything really well, considering the 2-year-old had not spent a night away from her parents before.  So, my Wednesday, although it did involve pre-preparing some of the food for Thursday, was spent doing some extra shopping, a trip to the Dollar Tree to buy stuffed animals and pompoms, pipe cleaners, glue and googly eyes and turning the dining room table into a craft center where all sorts of Thanksgiving decorations and pom-pom creatures were created using toothpicks and sticky glue…

We went to the Thanksgiving service on Wednesday evening at church and, since Gramma had not been on top of things when she picked them up, they were without jackets, so arrived at church looking like street urchins in Gramma’s sweaters (but at least they were warm).

Our Thanksgiving dinner was much smaller this year–not in terms of food, but people present.  We already knew our two daughters would be celebrating together in AZ, and that Henri, my brother-in-law who passed away in September would not be there, Judy (his wife) took a trip to Las Vegas for the weekend, and then we ended up with Tom & Tina missing because she was in the hospital, so there were “only” ten of us.

It gave me a chance to prioritize:  I didn’t get everything ready as I had schemed and dreamed about doing, but I was able to center in on what was important.  My Thanksgiving table was decorated by my granddaughters, which meant that literally every Thanksgiving decoration I own (except for 3 rather large pumpkins) was displayed in a neat row down the center of the table…

We used paper napkins instead of cloth ones, I forgot to light the candles and my sweet potato casserole was cold because in all of my planning, I forgot that I was putting it in the oven cold from the refrigerator instead of at room temperature–didn’t figure that one out until I was taking my first bite.

We all shared what we were thankful for and really had a nice time sharing food and family love.

Then it was off to the hospital to visit Mommy and collect some more clothes, jackets, PJ’s.

The thing is, it probably goes down as one of my less stressful Thanksgivings.  I am usually exhausted by the time dinner and cleanup are over and I was, but it was different this year.  In spite of everything, it was a more relaxing time because my expectations were lower…I realized that having a picture-perfect Thanksgiving gathering (which I’ve never lived up to, incidentally) was not the most important thing.

Being with family is what’s important.
Loving God and being loved by Him.

Making sure my granddaughters were comforted and happy during their parents’ absence was important.

Letting my granddaughters hang pipe cleaner decorations around the house and decorate the Thanksgiving table with more of the fanciful creatures…

Sitting on the couch holding my two year old granddaughter while
she slept on Thanksgiving morning was important.

The blessings of a home and a job, food to eat, good health, good doctors, children and spouses who love God and love each other, and are exceptional parents to my grandchildren…These are the things that are important–these are the things that matter in the giant scheme of things–mportant.

Although I realize all of this on some level most of the time, it’s easy to lose sight of  it in the middle of planning for the holidays and the expectations put on these days by the world around me.I’m thankful for a new granddaughter who has decided not to come so early after all.