The Day Before Thanksgiving

I'm going to try to remember as much as I can about Thanksgiving Eves as I can.

2011. When I went on my break in the morning, I was happy to see that there were pumpkin cookies in the vending machine, so I bought one. Then during my lunch break, I went to Port of Subs and got a Pilgrim Griller sandwich. I took it back to our break room, and I remember telling my coworkers about all the overtime I was working, which was why I could afford a ten-dollar sandwich. When I got back to work, the radio was playing a Kohl's Black Friday commercial that was a parody of Rebecca Black's "Friday." Some of my coworkers, including Jose, starting singing "Friday." Then I went home, listening to the terrible Hymns CD on the way. I got home and my dad told me I shouldn't see what my mom had done. She had found a recipe on Pinterest for Rice Krispies turkeys that used candy corn. But she was unable to find regular candy corn, so she bought Christmas-colored candy corn instead. Then we talked about what we should have for dinner--should we have our fall-shaped noodles, or should we go to Arctic Circle and get pumpkin shakes (plus dinner)? We decided on Arctic Circle. I was dismayed to see a house with a lit Christmas tree outside. After Arctic Circle, the radio was playing "Bulletproof" by La Roux, and I told my mom about how when that song would come on Pandora, the sounds would alternate in each of my earbuds. We might have stopped at Winegar's; I was skeptical that there was no candy corn, but that was in fact the case.

2010. I remember driving to work with there being snow on the freeway. I was going to work a little early, and we thought there would be a lot of work, since the snow had cancelled work the previous day, but we actually ended relatively early. I think my coworker Stephanie was saying, "How on earth are we done?" I think this was the day my coworker Brittany came just as I was finishing up some boxes; I told her she could finish up what I was doing so she could get some hours--or minutes--in. Then I went home and we watched the "Turkey Day" episode of The Beverly Hillbillies; I think my mom said she liked it more than the "Elly's First Date" episode we watched the day before.

2009. In the morning, we went and helped Sister Carter, an elderly sister in our ward, as we did every week. But she had forgotten about us. She let us rake leaves, and she made some canned soup for us. She was conducting piano lessons. I left a note thanking her for the last time. That evening we went around seeing different people. We stopped at a potential investigator's house who had seemed nice when I saw her in May or June; on this night, she was less friendly and said that it seemed like missionaries stopped by every three months. I knew that wasn't true, because it had been at least five months since I had been there before. We stopped at another potential, whom we had tried to contact ever since I had been there. We actually found them both home that night, and they let us in briefly. The man asked how much longer we had before we went home. I told him about five days. Then we went to the Coopers', a struggling family whose daughters were getting baptized. One of the daughters (Katelyn) wasn't there, but another was. We watched The Testaments, and the daughter who was there (Megan) had seen it from the missionaries in California. The movie started with the "great-with-child" Mary riding a donkey, and one of the five-year-old boys knew exactly what was going on. After seeing the Coopers, we had a lesson with Britt Beck, a less-active who was getting active again. He was baking pies and we talked with him in his kitchen. I think he told us that a pastor told him about reading Proverbs every month because there are thirty-one of them.

2008. In the morning we drove out from Davenport up to the stake center near Cheney. I brought out all my Thanksgiving candy and put it on the table in the Relief Society room where we were having district meeting. Elder Maurer was excited because he liked candy corn. Elder Hansen announced that we were singing hymn 140, "Did You Think to Pray?," but I said, "We sang that last week!" I said I wanted to sing a Thanksgiving song (as I had requested to Elder Hansen the night before), and he said we would at the end. But then some dummy said, "Let's sing a Christmas song." I strongly objected, but they went ahead with singing "Angels We Have Heard on High." But I refused to sing it, so instead I was singing "Father Thy Children to Thee Now Raise." Our zone leader, Elder Payne, was playing the piano, and he stopped and was busting out laughing because I was singing something different. Sister Tervola, a visiting Hawaiian sister from Temple Square, said, "What are you singing?" Then we sang "Come Ye Thankful People" for the closing hymn. Then we went back to Ritzville by way of Edwall. I remember having a lesson with Lucrecia, the excommunicated member who had used a little too much meth in her life. We talked about the Word of Wisdom, and I used President Packer's thought that a drunkard can't feel the still, small voice. While we were visiting, our phone vibrated. Elder Love checked it and said it was a text from Christol (Lucrecia's daughter), talking about Thanksgiving. (I looked at it later and it was one of those mass pass-it-on texts). As we were walking home, I remember improvising a poem: "'Twas the night before Thanksgiving, and through the apartment, all the creatures were in every compartment." (Or something like that.) I turned on my orange lights and I kept them on, but Elder Love turned them off after we were in bed because he couldn't sleep. This is my journal entry for that night: "Today at district meeting I was hoping both of our songs would be Thanksgiving songs. None of us were happy when Elder Hansen announced 140, 'Did You Think to Pray,' because we sang that last week. Some corrupt person suggested a Christmas song, and Elder Payne suggested 'Angels We Have Heard on High.' I said if we sang that I would throw the hymnbook at him, because I was still vying for a Thanksgiving song. I didn't throw the book, but while they sang the Christmas song, I sang 'Father Thy Children to Thee Now Raise" and "For the Beauty of the Earth." It caused Elder Payne to stop playing and Sister Tervola to ask what I was singing. I was glad when our closing song was 'Come Ye Thankful People.'

"It was a blah day. Our only QGI was the wife of Bruce, a less-active we found in Edwall. We came here, saw Adriana briefly, had dinner at Sharon's [I'm sure this means I had a pumpkin shake], saw the Johnsons for dinner tomorrow, then had a lesson with Lucrecia and Wanda. We talked about the Word of Wisdom and I presented it in a way I hadn't before, using 1 Kings 19:11-12, to show that we have to be able to hear the still small voice, and 1 Nephi 3:7."

2007. My memories of the Tuesday and Wednesday that week kind of run together. I'm pretty sure I was watching a lot of Green Acres (since I had a sprained ankle), and my mom had bought some Christmas chocolates, including Cadbury balls (like the mini eggs). It's possible this was the day I watched a bread delivery guy not put his truck in park and it went and crashed into a sign, but I think that was on Tuesday.

2006. I know my parents went to Fillmore this day, but I actually can't really remember anything about this day. :(

2005. During the day I spent a lot of time cleaning my room. I remember my mom and Ya-ping being impressed with what I had done. I did it for the purposes of an assignment, but I was glad to have it done. We had cinnamon- and wintergreen-flavored Christmas nougats, which I put on my dresser. That night we watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, having recently watched the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory several times. I remember asking which was better; my sister said they were too different to compare.

2004. I'm fairly certain I was wearing an orange polo and a red tie. We would have headed to Fillmore, but I can't remember much about that trip. I think we stopped in Provo to say hi to David and his family. My mom and I might have gone to the Legion Hall that night to start setting up, but maybe not.

2003. Since I couldn't find brown socks (!), I wanted to get some red socks to wear for Thanksgiving. I asked my dad if he had some. He pulled out some Christmassy ones, and I told him that those were Christmas socks. He said he thought that was why I wanted them. I remember sitting in my room, drawing little Thanksgiving pictures and labeling them with Spanish words. When we left to go to Fillmore, I took my Charlie Brown's Holiday Hits CD in the car, as well as a plastic bag so that I could clean papers out of my binders. I think this was the time we were listening to my sister's radio station of choice, and someone called in and requested a song. This song had some very inappropriate content that I was surprised was allowed on the radio, and my mom said it was time to change the station. (Maybe that was 2004.) We picked up David and Ya-ping. We were listening to my CD; I knew we had to skip the atrocious sixth track, and I said we could also skip the fifth track, so David skipped both. Then at another place, we had to stop the car, I think so that Nan could feed Allie. I remember saying that if I could see, I'm sure it would be beautiful outside. My mom said it wouldn't be, because it was the middle of nowhere with only sagebrush, but I said that was beautiful.

2001. While my mom was in the kitchen making pies, I was making red and yellow (and maybe orange) Thanksgiving candies with my Thanksgiving mold while watching I Love Lucy.

2000. We went to Shopko in the day and bought the new VHS of Chicken Run. I was dismayed at Bountiful's Christmas decorations. The four of us--me, my parents, and Susanne--all went down to Fillmore. We stopped at Duane's grocery store. I was impressed that this store actually had Thanksgiving decorations up, instead of jumping straight to Christmas, and I wondered why all stores couldn't be that way. But despite my aversion to Christmas decorations, at that time I didn't mind eating Christmas things (a strange difference from today), so we bought Christmas tree brownies, along with some beef jerky and other snacks. Then we went back to my grandparents' to watch Chicken Run. I ate some snacks, and at one point I was going for the snack bag. My mom told me I'd eaten too much bad stuff, but I told her I just wanted some jerky, and she was fine with that.

1999. The night before I had had a sleepover with my friend David Christensen. In the morning we yet again watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and pretended to be the characters, performing the same actions they did. We even did that when we were rewinding it. I remember playing in the snow and looking at all the little seed-leaf things. Then we went to David's house for lunch. While there, David said the "Little Birdie" song on A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving was his favorite song. His brother Caleb was excited to tell him that he had finished buying his Christmas presents. That night, I wanted to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving again. My brother David objected. He said I should watch The Nightmare Before Christmas because it was more Thanksgiving-y because it was between Halloween and Christmas. I think I thought of an elaborate analogy using colored water to explain how wrong he was, but I didn't tell it to him. He had friends over, and they watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but I only know that because I found the box the next morning.

Related posts:

A Year of Holiday Memories
Remember Every Detail, Volume 3: Thanksgiving