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Thanksgiving Confessions from the Cranberry Queen
Thanksgiving is on the horizon again, which inspires me to reflect on my own ghosts of Thanksgivings past. To me, this holiday is definitely up there as the ultimate family gathering. While packing a suitcase to fly home, I look forward to seeing my folks, my aunt and uncle, my cousins and their families, and my goofy brother. This year I won’t be going home, because the Relationship Gods have seen fit to end my silent seething and bestow upon me my very own sweetie-pie, so I’ll be attempting my very first Thanksgiving dinner for someone else’s family. Hopefully, armed with the knowledge that I won’t be giving Wolfgang Puck a run for his money anytime soon, we’ll all still all be on speaking terms when the last of the pumpkin pie has met its fate. But that’ll be another story for another time. I just need to make sure I have antacids on hand, just in case. Maybe I’ll bake them into the stuffing.
But back to my ghosts... I personally feel that I’ve been single far longer than I should have been, for any number of reasons. It even occurred to me, since my dating luck had been so poor, that if reincarnation does exist, that I must have beaten up some sweet old lady in a previous life, kicked her cat and stole her social security check while I was at it. I needed something to explain the bizarre phenomenon that was my less than stellar dating life.
Anyway, when I did live closer to my parent’s house, every year I would get dressed up and make the 15 mile trip for Thanksgiving Day, clutching the only thing that my mother would ever let me bring, a dish of cranberries. And if that wasn’t bad enough, my Pop insists on having his cranberries from the can, so my beautiful cranberry relish had to endure sharing the table with a can shaped blob that my mother graciously set out like she'd spent 100 hours making it. It’s bad enough that my control freak Mom never learned how to delegate so I could feel I had more of a sense of purpose than being demoted to relish messenger, and that I wasn’t hosting fabulous Thanksgivings in my gorgeous home with my witty and handsome significant other. I didn’t have someone sitting next to me squeezing my hand under the table, silently teasing me by making that “Spock eyebrow” when his eyes rested on Pop’s surreal can-berry dish.
Each year, over and over again, I would make the trip alone. For some reason, I was never seeing anyone during that time, or seriously enough to warrant bringing them home. Over the years I would watch as one cousin got married, then another, and another. Then one child was born, then another. Then they're talking. Then they're in high school. And then there was me. Sitting in the spinster seat. As close as I could be to the kids table. Wearing my spinster crown. Overseeing… well, nothing but the cranberries. I wasn’t really thrilled. Something had to give.
Finally, I got so depressed making that trip every single year that I realized that I had to make some changes in my life. I accepted a job 450 miles away and started fresh. I met different people. I still had to weed through some bad dates, but I persevered and eventually my last blind date paid off handsomely (literally).
I think that if I, who only wanted to find someone nice to share the little things with, (like family dinners and discussions about reincarnation) could keep a positive attitude (which was not always easy) and find what/who I was looking for, then anyone can. I just needed to focus on what I really wanted, and stop dating the turkeys that weren’t right for me.
So if you’re currently in the boat I used to sail, and are not looking forward to this being yet another “couple-less” Thanksgiving, then I only have this to share with you: Don’t give up. When searching for a great relationship, stay proactive; keep an open mind when you meet anyone new, and perhaps try something that I never thought of doing – host a singles only Thanksgiving-esque dinner party. You ask everyone you invite to bring a single friend and a side dish. Parties like this are a lot more fun than you might think, and can easily expand into monthly themed parties, with rotating hosts and homes. Give it a try! What do you have to lose, besides the eternal spinster/bachelor crown?
From all of us at Date.com - Happy Thanksgiving!
- by Brenda Ross
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