Ryan G. Coonrod
Mrs. Carpenter
English Comp. 101
January 31, 2013

Thanksgiving at My Grandmother’s Each and every year not quite winter solstice, but is still cold enough, when all the leaves changed to a rustic orange, warm reds and deep golden browns, as dull and lifeless. This is when my family all gathered in one place to engage in our own version of “Animal House”, and watched as the hilarities unfold. Thanksgiving clearly is a great time for kin to catch up on small talk and stories of their hometowns. These gatherings at my grandmothers made me feel lucky as a short leprechaun for having a caring family that instills core values. This is why I believe that my family is a rarity, otherwise known as an anomaly. It was at these festive family functions that I came to notice, like a mole on someone’s check, the fact that Thanksgiving-time is getting overly loud inside. Mimicking an alarm clock as if instructed to be punished. Although most of my aged relatives had a very “business” dress code, I do recall one of them wearing a pair of corduroy slacks and even sporting button up dress shirts throughout which was probably what they would have been wearing in the sixties. Today’s fashion sense is massively, individualized to each person, and maybe credited to youth and todays computer age. Generalized chit chat poured out uncontrollably in such a way that I would have to go outdoors to alienate my pain. When the older women of the whole family would come and talk, they also loved pinching my cheeks, like I was also in a dream and desperately needing to be awoken. Usually outside, which happened to be all of us cousins’ favorite places to hang out and play as if we all were newly founded friends. Mostly being all boys, we would always choose to play a game of flag football. However it came to be that a few older cousins always get into arguments eventually, they were actually siblings of one another. I would always find myself in the kitchen or dining areas, largely in part from the overpowering aroma