BLUF:  I love Thanksgiving dinner with our boating family.  Too bad Aunt Martha isn’t a boater too.

I know it is a bit early in the season but I am looking forward to Thanksgiving.   I was talking to one of the ladies on the dock and she told me that Thanksgiving was her least favorite holiday.   I was flabbergasted. “Why?” I asked.  She said that it was so stressful with all of the family demands pulling her this way and that way and all the drama that results.  Aunt Martha is still mad at having to drive all the way to Sarah’s house so she wants to do dinner at her house this year.  Grandmaw Elsie never forgave Steve for leaving early to go deer hunting and taking the turkey legs with him.  And then there is all that cooking.  Aunt Martha likes turkey but Joe wants ham.  Cousin Sarah wants scratch made cranberry sauce and Steve can’t eat turkey without the canned cranberry sauce.  She dreaded Thanksgiving.

On the other hand I love Thanksgiving spent with our dock family.   Starting back in the 90s my wife and I decided to spend Thanksgiving at anchor and take a break from the family drama.  It was not too many years later that Thanksgiving had morphed into a celebration attended by all of the dock misfits …. People who had no nearby family.  Pretty soon even people with nearby family started skipping out from their family obligations early so they could spend the afternoon with  their dock family.

Why?  Because the dock family Thanksgiving is exactly opposite of the Aunt Martha Thanksgiving.  We come together truly thankful for another year together.  There are no demands.  If you can make its great but if you can’t then we will enjoy your company next time you can make it to the boat … no sweat.  As far as all that cooking goes, we each make our specialty and bring it to the pitch-in.  And what a pitch-in it is.  Carol enjoys making banana pudding and we all love eating it.  If you  need canned cranberry sauce to enjoy the turkey then bring it along with that green bean casserole that you make so well.  The most stressful part of the cooking is what to do with all those left overs.  It’s enough to feed Cook’s Army.

You know it is a shame that Thanksgiving at Aunt Martha’s is such dreaded event.  I know she would be hurt if she knew how her family felt.  But if Aunt Martha was a boater I bet she would understand … And I bet she would send Steve off early with a sack loaded down with turkey legs.  “Cook’s Army won’t miss them.”

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