7:00 a.m. Happy Thanksgiving text from the family.  
9:00 a.m. Early Mass.  
By 11:00 a.m., I had peeled 22.5 pounds of potatoes.  I am not kidding.  I am the Undisputed Mashed Potato Queen.  I have prepared mashed potatoes for family holidays for many years, because they are impossible to mess up.  It’s all about butter, whipping cream and vast quantities of potatoes.  But about the time I put the third stock pot of water on to boil the last of the spuds, I knew something was not right. 


At 1:00 p.m. We were supposed to be at Thanksgiving Dinner, for 31 people.  
But Small One had a headache, a raging sore throat, and a fever of 101.5.


Time for a plan B.  


1:20, late as usual, the rest of the family packed into the trucks with the potatoes and drove away for dinner.  Small One and I cuddled up on the couch together.  


“Happy Thanksgiving, Kiddo.”  I said.  “Just you and me.  What do you want to do?”


“I like corn.”   She whimpered, huddling under her blanket.   “Can we eat corn out of a can together?”


Yes, we can.


And so we did.  


After all the cooking of the morning, the only clean pot in the kitchen was an egg poacher.  I was far too tired to wash dishes.  So I dumped the egg poaching cups out of the pan, and dumped a can of corn into the poacher.  In a few short minutes, we were cuddled up together in the big arm chair.  The poacher piled on top of every other pot and pan and potato bowl in the house, and I left it balancing there.  


And Small One and I ate canned corn with mashed potatoes.  She wore a damp washcloth on her head.  


Our Thanksgiving feast was unusually quiet. 


There was no hand holding, no long traditional prayer.  No cousins jumped about, shrieking and laughing, snitching treats.  No games of tag were dashed under the table or up the stairs.  No aunts discussed politics or sales, no uncles hammered out the details and how-to’s of organic gardening or ant farms.   No sisters talked about low-glycemic desserts, and no sisters dished up huge portions of homemade gluten free pie, crowned with whipped cream. No college kids regaled us with horror stories of final exams or roommates.  No one asked me to cut up their food.  


Just Small One and I, together, ate canned corn with mashed potatoes.  We did smile at each other.    


And we were thankful.  


She was thankful that she had her mom.  She had her blanket.  And she had her favorite food, canned corn.  


I was thankful for peace.  For hugs from my child.  For the antibiotics that would surely cure yet another case of strep throat.  I was thankful for the dirty dishes piled high, which meant that there was plenty of food for the family celebration.  I was thankful for the family.  Even if I wasn’t with them.  I was thankful for my mom, who hosted the party in her always-clean house, for a sister who made three turkeys, for a sister in law who baked all the pies.  I was thankful for the sister in law who made a special plate up for me, when all was said and done, with the best slices of turkey on it.   And mashed potatoes.  Lots of mashed potatoes.  


I fell asleep, holding Small One while she watched Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving special.  


I slept in the peace and quiet of alone-ness, hugging my feverish child, and dreaming of My Big Fat Family Parties.   It was almost like I was there, in the fray.  


Sometimes being absent makes me appreciate life even more.  


And I’m thankful for that.  

Okay, I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet...  But this just arrived in the mail, and I wanted to share it.  Guideposts has published their 2015 Edition of  "The Joys of Christmas", and inside is a story about Stella!  We're so excited!  This was the big Christmas photo shoot that I wrote about in June.  A great big thank you to my editor, Daniel Kessel, and to Guideposts editor-in-chief, Edward Grinnan, who writes about his brother, Bobby, in the notes from the editor.  Also many thanks to David Bowman Photography for patiently taking pictures.  
 Thank you all for sharing in the Joys of Christmas with us!

“This is highly unusual,”  the nurse practitioner said.  


Of course it was.  


“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this happen before,” he continued.  “Five family members test positive for Strep throat at the same time…”


I tried to give him the lame excuse that our dishwasher was broken.  Why?  Why would a broken dishwasher lead to five cases of strep?  Well, gee whiz.  The repair company schedules a week out, and we were sick of washing so many dishes.  So in the interest of saving time at the sink, we shared a water cup or two.  That’s all.  This is excluding all of my teenagers, of course.  Let it be known that they shared no cups.   Yes, the small ones and I were the only ones to share cups and therefore, get strep.  


Welcome to my life.  If there was a prize for being unusual, we would win.  Not if there was a prize for something unusual like, say, winning the lottery.  Not that kind of unusual.  No, we tend to win the “5 Cases of Strep Throat at Once” sort of prize.  



Last week was kind of a record, though, even for us.  Five people with fevers, sore throats, and short fuses, all at the same time…it didn’t really count as “Fun and Memorable Days Off School.”  We drank a lot of broth.  Broth was such a hit, that we had it four days in a row.  That means I didn’t have to cook, which was kind of a bonus.  I just kept the stock pot warming on the stove, and voilá:  Breakfast, lunch, and supper!   Too bad I was too sick to enjoy the vacation from cooking.  


But on the up side, nothing happened to the laundry.  Nope.  It’s still there, waiting for me, right where I left it before we got sick.  And it has multiplied.  What joy!  Our Laundry Mountain is a young mountain range, and somehow continues to grow over time.  I think that defies geological norms, but then again, it’s not truly petrified yet.   


We got into the doctor’s office really early.  To do that, everyone skipped breakfast.  “There is still Halloween candy in the car,” I said.  “You can have suckers for breakfast.  And it doesn’t matter if you’re still in your pajamas.  Let’s go!”


Thank God for penicillin.  I really am grateful.  You may not have been able to tell when I picked up the prescriptions, though.  I had a fever and a carload of sad, crabby sick kids, all with sore throats and fevers.  So of course, the pharmacy had problems filling our prescriptions.  Because I didn’t want to share germs around the world, we went to a new, drive-through pharmacy.   


Our prescriptions ended up at a different drive-through pharmacy with a similar address, other side of town.   I rested my head on the steering wheel, looked at the poor guy at the window (who did not want my germs) and said “I am not driving across town to that other pharmacy.  How long will it take to fill it here?”  


Thirty minutes.  We could do that.  “Look, let’s all get ice cream for our sore throats,” I said, hoping that would kill a half hour.  I couldn’t take everyone home and back again.  We were going to stick it out and wait.  But it was still morning.  No ice cream shop.  Fevering child number one began to sniffle.  “No crying!” I yelled, my head beginning to pound.  “I’ll fix it.  Look, there is a McDonalds with a drive through across the street.”  But that wasn’t any good, either.  Morning McDonalds for the gluten free crowd is limited to an egg McMuffin with no muffin.  Also no cheese, because my kids are the only kids in America who won’t eat melted cheese.  


“I’m sorry, kids.  But I am not paying $2.79 for each of you to have bread-free, cheese free Egg McMuffin.  That’s just a boiled egg and a piece of ham.  Not even if you’re sick.  You probably couldn’t swallow it, anyway.  Then it would end up on the car floor with all the Halloween candy wrappers.”  


We went back to the pharmacy.  They needed another half hour to solve insurance problems. 


By then, even my best-natured kids wanted to go home. 


“No, we can do this!”  I entered cheerleader mode.  “Look, there’s a lake here.  Let’s drive around the lake and see what we can see.”  Silence fell in the car, as I drove them into sleepy boredom.  Ten minutes.  Twenty minutes.  At thirty, we were back at the drive through pharmacy.  


“Still having trouble with one of the insurance cards,” our faithful pharm tech said.  “I mean, it’s obvious that all the cards are the same family, the same numbers…there must be a glitch in their system.  I’ll need another half an hour to solve this.”


I looked at him.  I had glassy eyes, disheveled hair, and white knuckles on the steering wheel.  He smiled sheepishly and said he hoped we all felt better soon.  I handed him the cash to skip insurance, and finally drove away.  


Five bottles of penicillin, one big couch, and Netflix were all we needed.  
And some broth.  Out of five clean mugs. 


Next time my family does something unusual and noteworthy, I’m going to ask for a Different Prize.