Making memories…..“Let’s do that again!” It was an extended Thanksgiving this year for my husband and I, as it is for many. Getting together with his family and her family, often marrieds spread out the holiday over a long weekend or sometimes have rolling weekends as they take in the holidays.
What are some of your traditions? Are you a family with traditions? Is it important to you? At first pass, I never really thought we had a Thanksgiving tradition other than the turkey dinner with all the ‘traditional’ fixin’s. Outside of that, being a small family, with just my brother and I and a thousand + miles from cousins, all of whom were much older than us, we didn’t have the annual football game after the big meal that you see in movies. We never had family come stay with us for Thanksgiving-so we didn’t have any Folger’s holiday commercial moments. It seemed it was a long weekend and we didn’t do much beyond the big meal. But my memory was jogged this year as my mom was getting her goods ready to take down to the elementary school cafeteria in my hometown for The Annual Thanksgiving Weekend Bazaar, held every Saturday after Thanksgiving. We went to that year after year for as long as I can remember as kids. There would be table after table set up with people bringing their homemade goods; something baked, something woven, something crocheted, something painted, something carved. Things you didn’t know you needed, gift ideas for the people in your life impossible to buy for, you could find it at the bazaar. I remember loving that tradition we had growing up. I haven’t been back for the bazaar in decades, but this year went down to see if we could help mom get her table set up for the big day.
My husband and I, my brother and his girl-we had time to kill before meeting mom back at her place for left-overs on Friday, so we headed downtown in our small hometown to see what mischief we could find to pass the time. My brother decided it would be good to go hit the second-hand store to see if we could find treasures. We were all on board. We drove up to see the lights on, but the Closed sign out. I caught a flash of someone in there. They must have just been closing. Another patron walked up to their door and, with hands up, peered in. It must not have made sense to her either for them to be closed in the middle of the afternoon on a Friday. One of the volunteers inside decided to let the late shopper in and so we decided to see if we could make a quick trip in too. Anxious to go home for the day, the elderly lady welcomed us in with a stern, “You’ve got 5 minutes!” So, we were in! The Nearly New is in what used to be Angle’s Hardware that welcomed us in the early 70’s when we moved there to that Mayberry-ish town. So that was it. We had 5 minutes and 5 bucks apiece to see what kind of treasures we could land. It was a blast! All of us in our late-ish 50’s, and one over the threshold-60, we were like a bunch of little kids; one might think old enough to be past the ‘make a new tradition’ age. I scored a brand new-tags on pair of jammer bottoms for $3.00 and a like new moss-green corduroy top for $2. My brother landed a sommelier’sbottle opener; his girl a basket and two cocktail glasses; my husband, 3 strands of LED Christmas lights. As we checked out the stern elderly lady told me she was glad I bought those jammer bottoms, she didn’t like them as she didn’t like the gingerbread men on them-she was happy to see them go! Hilarious. A real sales lady.
It was decided then and there, that must be a new Thanksgiving tradition. The four of us, never too old for a new tradition. Thrifting… 5 minutes, 5 bucks, Black Friday.
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