No Stockings for this holiday

Have you seen the commercial for these?

Oh my goodness, DROOL. I want each kind, but my damn waistline is already putting on its winter weight. I am forcing myself to WW this week to weigh in to get the damage in real numbers. *sigh* Stomach is growling right now!

So many blogs are talking about Thanksgiving. So I will too, cause I am a follower like that.

There are many things that I remember when I think of Thanksgivings past.

My grandparents, my mom's parents, always play first and foremost in my memories. They were great, they were the ULTIMATE grandparents for me. I loved going there for the holidays.

Gramma always had a cabinet with one cupboard full of stuff for us kids to play with, coloring books, blocks, things of that nature. All of us kids would run to that cupboard and pull it all out. There is something magical about a cabinet with toys that weren't yours and remained consistent every year.

Gramma would say, "these are very special toys that I keep here just for you kids, I hope you enjoy them"

She was the most gentle woman.

All of Gramma's pretties as she would call her things, they seemed so fragile and so special. Mostly because they were hers. She was those things to me, fragile and special.

I can remember coming over for the Thanksgiving dinner to see her petite body slaving over the stove. The pan of boiling potatoes bigger than she was, Grandpa carving the turkey. They were a vision together. SO in sync, so representative of what love looks like to me.

As the years slipped on, gramma became a real hoot, er toot. She had lost all abilities to "hold it in". As she stirred the potatoes a few toots would ease out. Trying not to fall out of our chairs in a fit of giggles, she would merely say, "oops". I can still see her innocent face now.

My grandpa was a CARD. He seriously once started a food fight with me and my cousin in the local Ponderosa. He was on one side of the buffet bar and we were on the other when a piece of food came flying over at us.

He always acted like a kid, a fun kid (a kid you wouldn't want as your own, but the kind you loved to be around). Every year a spoonful of potatoes was aimed towards me, with giggles of memories of Ponderosa. Gramma would gently put her hand on his forearm before he let the potatoes fly. "Daddy" she would always say softly. He'd put the spoon down, but not before he gave me the most loving grin. On the heels of the grin he would lob a roll at me instead, stating, "she ASKED for a roll!"

They were great. Even the prayer before dinner made us smile. Gramma every year thanked God for keeping her on this earth a year longer. We would smile with tears and eye rolls, because for the most part, she was pretty darn healthy. For that we were thankful too.

We lost my Gramma, 7 years ago, I think it was 7 years ago. It was devastating. It is devastating. It was right before Thanksgiving. Several small heart attacks, mostly undetected, were what took her.

We lost my grandpa 7 months later, on Father's Day, his body just shut down, he had diabetes and he just went down hill faster than anything I had ever witnessed. I think that the diabetes took him, but his decline in health was broken heart induced.

Holidays haven't been the same, especially Thanksgiving.

We have tried to start new traditions, but we have failed miserably, because nothing can take the place of what my grandparents created.

Gramma and Grandpa Stocking (a name given by my little sister who couldn't pronouce their last name) you are thought of all the time, not just the holidays. You are missed.