Very Traditionally Speaking 11/26/2023

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

I will go ahead and confess to you now that I am writing this a week early.  So, I am typing here the week before the week of Thanksgiving because, well, quite frankly, my week of Thanksgiving is going to be very, very busy.  I don’t really foresee me having any time to write this during that week. Due to this fact, this blog could be basically me talking mostly about things I am going to be experiencing after the time of writing. Now when you can read this all these future things will be past but, again, writing time is not a luxury that will be very prevalent for me to give you the actual post experience details. It makes me think of the very typical and very southern phrase when one says they are “fixin’ to” do something. It means that they are about to do something, and I cannot tell you why we use this phrase but well, I am about to give you here a pretty significant amount of fixin’ to dos.

On my daughter’s last morning of school before she got out for her Thanksgiving break, both crossing guards, who are really just women who volunteered to help with school traffic and its maneuvering, had turkeys on their heads. Let me clarify that they did not in fact have actual birds either alive or dead on their heads. These were festive hats that were simply a turkey that had a place to fit your head in. They were both smiling far more significantly than usual, and both were getting far more waves and return grins than usual as well. We do love our holiday traditions even if they are displayed as headgear.

I bring up traditions to tell you of all the goings on that will be coming in the next several days for me. Yes, all the classic ones are there. I will be traveling to have Thanksgiving dinner with my extended family on that Thursday. I will maintain my standard of NOT participating in Black Friday shopping. Mostly because all my shopping is already done, Thank the Lord, but also because there is not a deal good enough for me to be willing to stand in throngs outside a store waiting to wrestle strangers for it.  I say that now, but as I type, I am thinking that one day my daughter may have her heart set on some special, probably ridiculous, something that she will just have to have. And let’s face it, there is the real possibility that I may do something asinine to get it for her, however, if the madness that is Black Friday can be avoided to get her said thing, I will do so. It will certainly be a last resort scenario. I can tell you that for free.

While all the usual things will occur, this year will be different because for the better part of next week, I will have a guest from another country. And before you think some wild exotic something is afoot; the country is England so there shan’t hopefully be a language barrier at the very least. But there will be culture shock. Bless him, I really don’t know if he is ready.  If I’m honest, I am pretty sure that there are people from this country that wouldn’t be ready to experience the week of Thanksgiving in the state of Alabama.  Sure, we have the meal and such like most of America, and of course, in my humble yet biased opinion the Southern version of this meal is the superior one. But there is an added element that rather takes on a life of its own here.  The Saturday after Thanksgiving in Alabama has an event that will shape the course of the year for the state. That Saturday is the Iron Bowl.

That is a big part of the reason that my English friend is coming. He has fallen in love with the same school that my family loves that will be playing in this college football game.  He has come to be a part of all the traditions that go with a rivalry game dating back to the late 1800s. Interestingly enough, the university has gotten wind of our foreign guest and has rolled out the red, or more accurately, orange and navy, carpet. It’s going to be exciting to see him experience not only this American holiday, and the South itself but also a rivalry that, well, if you ask me or any other person who is worth their salt in American College football, would say is probably the most passionate in the nation. 

He’ll also get a taste (figuratively and literally) of rural Southern living too while he is at my house and even more so as he travels to my family’s Thanksgiving.  But he’s up for it.  He is actually excited about it, every little part. We’ll be fitting a lot in next week, but it will be something to behold. It will be like watching someone important to you watching your favorite movie for the first time. Their reaction is almost as good as the movie itself. I get to live that for the next several days. Actually, as you’re reading this, I will have already lived it.  Who knows, next week’s blog may write itself.