A Thanksgiving for remembering and laughing

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.  I get to see family that I only see on the one holiday.  Everyone is grateful for what they have and where they are.  It's one of the few times a year that people can look beyond their complaints and hard times and really see how good God has been to them.  We have all had struggles and hard times, but in the end, sitting around with your cousins and aunts and uncles and parents and siblings, you can't help but realize how fortunate you are. 
This year, we found ourselves reminiscing about when we were young.  Now the all of my cousins have hit 20 and beyond, we are cherishing that time together even more.  Both sets of my grandparents have passed away, 3 of the 4 when I was young.  On my dad's side, I don't even remember my grandfather.  But we did spend some time remembering my grandmother.  She was such a great grandmom.  It's funny, how as a child you are lucky to really only see and remember the best stuff.  I know now, as an adult, that life with my grandmother wasn't always rosy, but with her grandkids - WOW! We have nothing but good memories.  Granny Jackie had this cool house with a rock garden.  Yep, a rock garden, and we used to look for rocks that she would use in it! She also had a sun bed in her bathroom.  It wasn't a tanning bed, but a little alcove that you laid in when you got out of the bath to dry off.  And she had all our heights measured out on the door frame at the top of her steps. 
It hit me this year that we are starting to make those memories for our children.  My sister has one kid and my cousin has a one year old now.  Hopefully we'll be adding more to the mix in the coming year.  And we are making those memories.  Our kids will remember spending those special Thanksgivings at my aunts house where my uncle refers to the women as "womenfolk" and pretends we have our "place" in the kitchen.  They'll remember my dad sitting out on the porch smoking his pipes enjoying the quiet.  They'll remember looking at the leaves and squirrels and acorns with my mom and my aunt.  They'll remember being on a cooking team to help prepare the Thanksgiving meal.  They'll laugh about the games we play on the Friday after Thanksgiving, or the movie we choose to go see.  They'll read books and play ping pong and take more pictures than they dreamed possible.  And then years from now, they'll say, "Remember when we used to ..." 
Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the things going on around us and the logistics of how we'll make things happen, that we don't really enjoy the things that are happening.  This road to our adoption has seemed long and slow to me, but there has been so much encouragement and love that paved the way for us.  We will be able to look back on this time and say, "Remember when it was just us and we hoped and prayed so hard to fill our home..." 
So, I want to continue this time making memories and savoring the laughs we have.  If there's one thing my family is great at, it's laughing.  And who wouldn't want to remember that.