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Dear Reader,
Inviting friends and even strangers to Thanksgiving Dinner has been a long-standing tradition for me. When my father was alive, it irritated him to no end that people who weren't "family" were sitting at our Thanksgiving dinner table. But I actually went looking for folks who were going to be home alone on Thanksgiving and I'd invite them over for dinner. That tradition continues today. The same day I begin working on my Thanksgiving menu, is also the day I start keeping my eyes and ears open for the opportunity to ask, "What are you doing for Thanksgiving this year?"
It's funny how things work out. I've always crossed paths with just the right number of people, so there's plenty of food and plenty of room to seat everyone. But I suppose one of these days things could get out of hand, maybe even a little comical. The idea of purposely looking for strangers to invite to Thanksgiving dinner, I think it would make a wonderful Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special, or maybe even a children's book.
Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, and Snoopy have made plans to celebrate Thanksgiving together, but the week before the big day, Charlie Brown keeps meeting people who are going to be eating dinner alone. So of course he extends an invitation, and the dinner list keeps growing and growing. As the guest list grows, so does the need for more food. The gang has to keep making trips to the grocery store to buy more ingredients, and then they realize they'll need more chairs. When they start knocking on neighbors' doors asking to borrow chairs, they discover more people who'll be dining alone, so they invite them too. By the time the fourth Thursday in November rolls around sixty-eight people are coming to dinner.
Where do you seat sixty-eight people? It's eclectic table seating: dinner guests are perched on hat boxes, dining on the treadmill, eating dinner in bed (six people can comfortably dine on top of a queen size mattress), sitting on the front porch stoop, the upstairs hallway gives a nice view, dinner on top of Snoopy's dog house, three can fit in the claw foot bath tub, overturned dresser drawers make intimate tables for two, and the oversized chandelier seats four (but you have to eat quickly, because the bulbs start getting a little toasty by the time you're eating your pumpkin pie).
Yes, a house filled with family, friends and even a few strangers--that's what I'll be thankful for this Thanksgiving.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
* This month's Penguin Classics book is CHILDHOOD, by Jona Oberski. Start reading now and don't forget to enter the drawing for your chance to win a Penguin Totebag: http://www.supportlibrary.com/bc/v.cfm?L=drclassqqxqZ1AFE3FA7EF5&c=CLASSICS
AUTHORBUZZ: AuthorBuzz authors are on vacation for the next two weeks. Instead of writing, they'll be roasting turkeys and baking pies. They will return the week of December 1st.
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