Thanksgiving Day

Tuesday night I was looking for a blank VHS tape to record House for my daughter. I don't have any blank tapes, but I use to tape everything, so I was just throwing tapes in the old VCR and trying to find one that I didn't mind taping over. In the process... I found a treasure. In the midst of about a hundred non-labled VHS tapes, I found one that contained home movies of my children when they were very young. Christmas, Easter and various preschool plays. I haven't watched beyond that, because my sentimental heart was about to burst. I had a friend at work tell me you can get stuff like this put on a disc and I think I'm going to have to look in to that, no matter the expense. This tape is just too precious to my heart to lose. I will be taking this tape, along with a box of Kleenex to my parent's house today to show my mom.

I just can't express how seeing my children again so young has made me feel. It is the most surreal feeling in the world. I'm so thankful that I have been blessed with seeing my children grow up, yet to see them so young again makes me wish I could go back to that time and stay there forever... where no one had to grow up. I think all three of us had such young and untainted hearts at that time. Looking back, I just don't think I appreciated that time enough. I know I did, but 20 years later I just can't help feeling this way. Do my parents think the same things looking at old photographs? Do they remember, as I remembered tonight, their youth, their precious children when they were still children and holding them and feeding them and do they yearn, as I did watching that video, that they could do it all over again?

There is footage of both of my brothers, my Nanny who was still sprite enough to get around without a walker and who was still able to see well, my mother, my dad, and me in my early 20's.

This year I'm especially thankful for my family. I am always thankful, but after watching us all... it is even more so. I'm thankful for finding that video when I did.

Happy Thanksgiving all. May you find your youth in pictures or videos of your childhood and may you hold on to that this holiday season.

***

Thanksgiving was wonderful today. It snowed... and iced a little. But it was beautiful. What little of the video my mom watched was as wonderful as I would have thought. My kids didn't want any part of watching themselves at that age and I don't understand why. Maybe it is one of those things that they will only be able to appreciate when they have kids of their own. I'm just not sure. I'm sad that they don't understand how much it means to me now, though. And I believe I embarrassed my son by playing it and that was not my intention at all. Again... maybe someday he will understand. Anyone who knows me at all, knows how much my kids mean to me. I could go on for pages and page with detailed accounts on how much I love those guys. but I won't.

I hope your day was just as fantastic!