Flying Turkeys- Andrew Collins

It would be a lie to say that my thanksgiving is anything but cliche. We gather, cook the food that wouldn't have traveled well, and then we dine. We watch the football game, and many members of the family nap. Nothing special there.

Until they moved a few years ago, we traded thanksgiving between my house and my great Aunt's house (who used to live in the same neighborhood). Our location is fairly centralized for the family as a whole, so the location was never really debated. That tradition stopped when they moved, which led to the attempted creation of a new tradition: main meal at our house, and then dessert at theirs. However, that tradition only lasted for maybe a year or two, and I can say with certainty that it didn't happen this year. Since then, it has been held at our house every year.

Its a bit of a stretch, but you could say that part of our tradition is cutting down a tree on thanksgiving morning every 17 years. Before I was born, my dad and his dad cut down an aging crab apple tree from our yard, where an ash tree was planted soon after. Unfortunately, the ash tree was split badly this year during a storm, and had to be removed. My dad had been removing sections of it for a few months now, and with the help of his dad and I, the final sections were removed. So I guess that in another 17 years, whoever lives here will have to remove the next tree.