Twenty-four years into our new tradition and the 17 of us have grown into 42 of us and we can’t imagine it any other way than it is now. For the younger set, it’s the only way they’ve known. With their mother’s handwritten recipes, the sisters work all day to carry on Grandmother’s legacy of loving their family with food. As they’ve gotten a little older, they’ve started giving out food assignments, but they still do the heavy lifting by making the stars of the show- the turkeys, dressing, and most of the desserts. For 24 years, they’ve cooked the most delicious feasts- just like their mother before them. What a gift they give our family every year. It will take all 8 of us in the next generation to fill their shoes when it’s our turn. 

The holidays mean the year is winding down and we start to consider what has come of it. Like me, I bet you’ve had a lot of ordinary days this year. The ones you can’t really recall because they were pretty routine and nothing special. There were likely days that left us feeling regretful or anxious or even angry. There were also days we thought life just couldn’t get any better. And there may have been days that took our breath away with shock and sadness. We’ve worried, celebrated, cried, worked, loved, aged, hoped, rested, feared, laughed, wanted and waited. 

A lot happened as we flipped the calendar through 2025 and there will be families, like ours, who’ll come together for the holidays with a fresh void that will sit in every corner and hover over each conversation. It’ll be at the door and on the hearth and in the kitchen- everywhere they turn. Whether they saw the void coming or it took them completely by surprise, it’s there just the same and it may be most pronounced in the sentimental flurries of the holidays. Maybe your family will be one of those this year, too. I pray God will be close to you. I pray He’ll be felt at the door and on the hearth and in the kitchen- and anywhere else you feel the absence of someone you love. The Bible says God is near to the brokenhearted and those whose spirits are crushed. To give thanks with a broken heart may be the hardest thing of all, but God is so faithful and true to us even on the darkest days which are inevitable in this fallen world. I hope everyone who mourns will find Christ, our Savior, sitting near to them this holiday season. 

God bless you and yours this Thanksgiving. 

Joni 

                 Ben 11/26/74- 10/10/25

                 So loved and so very missed. 

With that being said, it’s late November and we’ve had one cold snap which was so nice- all 46 hours of it. You’ve never heard such groaning as the summer people let out when they had to share the weather pattern for almost a couple of days. Here we approach the Thanksgiving holiday and the dawn of the Christmas season and cue another Mississippi heat wave. How I do love the South, but it makes it hard for its cold-loving citizens to attain the holiday spirit. 

With just a week to go, women everywhere are starting to feel the pressure of the Thanksgiving dinner. The shopping and dicing and baking and arranging. You’ll be squeezing card tables in corners and pulling chairs out of the attic and scoping out unsuspecting plant materials for your centerpieces. With your Karo syrup, french fried onions, and sweetened condensed milk at the ready, you think you’re just preparing a big meal for your family, but you’re really cementing core memories for the younger generations who will sit at your tables. You’re setting an unattainable standard by which future Thanksgivings will be judged long after you’re gone. You’re creating a permanent snapshot in younger minds of a beautiful moment in time- one they’ll wish, over and over, they could relive as their years accumulate. Their memories won’t just be of the food -which is the thing dreams are made of- but it’s the home, the greeting at the door, the candles, the special touches, the voice saying the blessing, the familiar smells, and the feeling of being enveloped in love. It’s the warmth of a crazy, wonderful mixture of generations, personalities and relationships together in one place and the feeling of belonging there. 

So, as you traipse around town in search of the right bird and the perfect napkins, remember what you’re doing is so powerful. You’re not just feeding bellies, you’re filling their memory tanks with loving tradition that will warm them when the world feels cold— and even when they’re your age, they’ll still be able to feel the warmth of what you did while you thought you were just making a nice dinner. Carry on, ladies. You’re doing important work. 

JONI