Tag: past

Shifting Time, Adapting Traditions

November 15, 2022

Shifting Time, Adapting Traditions


Yesterday a notification from my calendar app popped up on my phone.  It read, “Pearson Family Thanksgiving at Mom & Daddy’s.”  It was an old recurring appointment I’d just never deleted.  I guess I hoped we’d restart it someday.  The recurring day was always the 15th of November and time was set as 4pm to 7pm just because my app in 2010 with my first smartphone didn’t allow “all day” appointments to give me day-before notifications.

Why would our family Thanksgiving be on the 15th instead of the fourth Thursday of each November?

Good question: here’s the historical answer…

It started after the first year Louis and I got married.  We had just tried to do Thanksgiving at his family’s (Grandma Jeanette’s house) and then Thanksgiving at my family’s – and were exhausted and Louis complained he was too full from one place to eat half of what he wanted to taste at my parent’s house.  Same happened at Christmas!  At least the food part wasn’t a big issue at Christmas.  His family always did presents and stuff at the crack of dawn (not really, but early) and my family usually had a big breakfast, tried all the kids’ patience, setup everything, made sure all the service workers had gotten a good nights’ sleep so it was later and lasted longer.  Christmas was easy.  Morning with his family, afternoon with mine.  

Plus, as the second year holidays approached, we realized that three of us (Louis, Katy, and Becca) worked service industry and didn’t have the actual Thanksgiving Day off.  Hmm… That made the decision even easier!  I approached my Daddy with an idea: what if, we celebrated Thanksgiving on Mom’s birthday each year instead of actual Thanksgiving Day – of course, they could still do the actual Thanksgiving, but the Travel Thanksgiving Day celebration when we all got together would be Mom’s birthday.  Daddy said, “two feast days for Thanksgiving?  Great idea.”  (or something very similar to that, I don’t remember the exact words)

We started celebrating Thanksgiving with my family on November 15th, my Mother’s birthday!  It was perfect, service industry workers could easily ask and get a random day a week and a half before the start of the holiday rush (pre-Nights-of-Lights for us Saint Augustinians), and we’d always make or buy a cake for Mom!  It was perfect!  (Then we could go to our own thing or for us, go to Louis’ family celebration on Thanksgiving Day, if we were off – Louis usually tried to make an appearance; even it is was briefly.)

Lots of stuff has happened to my birth family and we’ve tried to keep that tradition alive, but it isn’t happening this year.  Instead, we are hosting Thanksgiving for anyone able from 11/23 to 11/27.  A few of our family will be in town and able to visit.  Maybe some friends might pop in over those off-days (we are off work and the girls on break from college, Louis is on call, but he’s always on call) – family and friends make for fun days full of memories!  

I smiled at the notification because it today would mark four full years since we’d gone over to Mom and Daddy’s for “Pearson Thanksgiving on Mom’s Birthday” and all my older girls remember “two Thanksgiving parties” every year!  Lucas attended some, but doesn’t remember them.  Thea hadn’t ever been.  

So many things shifted in our family that now, getting days off before Thanksgiving, when most of us are on vacation is like “really?” and two of our children are grown (okay, Becky’s not legally an adult yet, but I consider her one) so I want our home to be the gathering place.  I want to be like Grandma Jeanette, the “glue” that holds the family together.  I want everyone to feel welcome and this year we’ve officially started opening our home to anyone during holidays (it feels like we have more space even though we don’t).  Not that we didn’t say it before “oh, you can just come by” no, this year we sent out timelines to family and have offered verbal invitations to friends of our kids and their families.  I want to be the fun memory-making place – and it won’t matter that we won’t be in this house next year for any of the fall holidays, our new place will be the new gathering place.  I want to build memories so my younglings keep coming back – even if one day they show up and say, “Dad, Mom, can we do Thanksgiving at your house on your anniversary instead of actual Thanksgiving Day?” – and yes, we’ll shift with the time to accommodate what our youngsters and their growing families need… but that’s WAY in the future, right?  

(Who am I kidding?  It seems like yesterday I proposed the question to my Daddy…)

Thank you for Reading!

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

Overcomer: Movie Review

September 6, 2019

Overcomer

My family went to see the new Kendrick brothers’ movie, “Overcomer” on opening weekend.  Oh. My!  This film has great acting, believable serious characters, some realistic humor, and glaring, real-life truth.  It catches you into the storyline almost instantly.  Major disappointment we can all relate to begins the story.  The one glimmer of hope comes from the coach consoling his players with a very serious, “next year will be our year.”

Well, life happens.

(Isn’t that always what seems to be true? We plan what we see as perfection, but a monkey-wrench gets tossed in to muck up said plans.)

The primary employer in the area closes, relocating to another area and because it offered the workers transition into new jobs, of course, most workers relocate along with it – taking the team members with them in ones and twos until only one is left.  Imagine being 17 years old, hoping for a scholarship in your favorite sport and boom, because of something outside of your control, your team is decimated to where you don’t even have a poor team to be the star of.  This faces the coach’s eldest son. 

Meanwhile, the coach is facing an aggravation that blows up in slamming bricks into shattered bits of sand.  He can’t see the light of anything.  No team, 10% pay cut, no scholarship for his eldest son, and being “forced” to coach in a sport he pretty much hates, cross-country, with a team of one (okay, if you’ve seen the trailers, this isn’t a spoiler) – a girl with asthma. 

Enter Hannah.  A petty thief stealing to prove she can get away with is who happens to be granted what her grandmother believes is a “full scholarship,” really her private school tuition is paid for by her late mother’s friend.  This girl feels she has no friends, feels abandoned by everyone (parents are dead, Grandmother is always working), and good at only one thing – running. 

Coach’s wife feels they are teachers to answer a calling of caring for students and showing love.  She accepts Hannah 100% without reservation. 

Coach is still internally fuming over his losses. 

Providentially, he accidently steps into Thomas’ room.  A man whose not-so-old body is being torn apart by wasting diseases brought on by his drug-addicted and abusive past.  He was a champion runner.  Over time, Coach picks Thomas’ brain on how to coach Hannah. 

*Spoiler Alert!*

Don’t go any farther if you don’t want the whole “hidden” twist revealed.  As the blind Thomas asks Coach about himself, I whispered to Thea (she can’t tell anyone anyway, but I like to talk about movies as I watch them and she doesn’t care if I “ruin” the movie) “Thomas is Hannah’s father.”

Yep.  My storywriter brain is connecting the “coincidence dots” and morphing an awesome story of redemption – yes, that’s what the movie does.  Thomas abandoned his family (leaving Hannah with her Grandmother who holds a deep root of bitterness) to chase drugs and junk.  Once though, Thomas was a champion runner.  He believes God has given him a second chance. 

Doesn’t God always do that?  He always gives us a chance at redemption.  I love pointing out stories in real life and in movies where there are second chances or last minute redemptions.  Yes, we are nerds, so I’m usually at least twice a week discussing the redemption story of Star Wars – you know, how Anakin had good intentions, fell away from the good side, wrestled with himself, did so many bad things, yet redeemed himself with his last few hours and gets to be a “good part” of the force.  Redemption has always been offered but we have to accept it. 

Overcomer is one the girls can’t wait to add to our collection – if we didn’t have a limited budget, our clan of ten (my mom joined us) would have gone to see it the next day too, bringing friends along! That is the first time the girls wanted to go back to the theater and see the same movie again.  Usually, if we see a movie together (usually a Star Wars flick), they leave saying “I can’t wait til it’s on DVD!” This one was, “can we see this again tomorrow?”

One line got me as a mother: “For 6 weeks, I had the perfect Dad.”  (Hannah says this at Thomas’ funeral.)  I cried. God used what looked like simple choices to weave together a tapestry of forgiveness, freedom, and purpose for so many people.

What has God orchestrated you toward?  Are you open to love and forgive, or are you stubbornly clinging to bitterness as revenge?  Think about it; what one choice did you agree with God on and now see so much more than just one simple thought of “oh yeah, I did the right thing.”

I love it when movies make me reflect on my heart.

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

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