The Memory Project 2: The Charles Family's Wild Ride

Memory is a tricky thing. I often find myself having random thoughts from my life play through my mind and I decided to follow the path of these memories and see where they lead.

This morning I was thinking about Thanksgiving traditions. 

Today many will be hitting the malls for the yearly shopping frenzy. I've never been one for Black Friday madness because in my family we had different traditions.

After stuffing ourselves with a great feast my mother prepared our family always relaxed and watched The Wizard of Oz which always showed on our local station Thanksgiving night:

The day after Thanksgiving was the day we put up our Holiday decorations. That meant going to get a tree. my mother preferred live trees, but she never liked buying trees from lots. So we went to Christmas tree farms and picked our own tree!

One year after a mild storm on Thanksgiving my mother bundled me, my sister and three of our friends into her Cadillac and headed out to a farm an hour away. We were giddy and loud in the car. For 70's kids the Christmas countdown began after Thanksgiving. So we were chatty and loud ,discussing what toys we wanted  and probably getting on my poor mothers nerves!

My mother was a very safe driver and one of the few luxuries she allowed her self was her car. Every 3 years my Father would get my mom a new Cadillac and this years was a black one that he called BBB, Bertha's Black Beauty.

However the roads were icy and while in the midst of our laughter my mom hit an ice patch and our car did a complete 360 spin ! I can still remember spinning in the car as we twirled ( It was the 70's, people piled in cars without seat belts). My mom know the best thing to do was take her foot off the break and control the wheel to the car stopped.

We all set there in shocked silence for at least ten seconds before everyone one in the back started cheering and screaming for my mom to do it again. It also calmed us down considerately so the rest of the day went smoothly. 

I can remember the chill in the air, the crunch of white snow  as we examined several trees before picking the one we wanted. As our tree was wrapped and placed on the roof we sipped hot cider the tree farm  passed out.

Our ride home was uneventful and we spent the afternoon decorating the tree, eating leftovers and napping . 

Hope your Thanksgiving weekend is wonderful!