Less than a week until Thanksgiving . . .

and we are in a flurry of preparation.
Endless lists are being written and rewritten.
On Saturday, we will go to the cider mill to get cider for our holiday meal . . .
The cider mill has been a part of my own holiday tradition for as long as I can remember.
When I was a little girl, my family lived in New Jersey.
Every year, on Thanksgiving morning, very, very early, when most children were still sleeping, and grandmas were up checking turkeys, and grandpas were puttering about "getting things ready" for the day, and families were beginning their holiday travels for cheery celebrations in their old hometowns, my mom would wake me up and I'd quickly get dressed in the crisp morning air, throwing on jeans and a sweater.
We would get in the car and drive the 40 minutes or so it would take to get to the Nettie Ochs Cider Mill on Old Short Hills Road in Livingston, and we would buy 4 to 5 gallons of the best cider I have ever had! Crisp and golden, with a sparkly flavor. I could drink glass upon glass of it, but you kind of have to be careful with cider.
And every year, I would get a small bag of gummie bears to eat on the way home.
I liked the red ones best.

Thanksgiving just wasn't the same without this trip.
I can still see the mill. You can watch them making the cider from windows in the small store. At least, that's how it used to be. I haven't been there in years.
We are no longer able to make it to Nettie Ochs, and for many years, a trip to the cider mill was just a happy memory that would curl my lips in a smile every time I thought of it (mostly around the holidays) . . . but there is a cider mill about an hour and a half or so from here.
We took the boys there for the first time last year. It was so much fun. I don't mind the drive if it is a beautiful fall day. When we were there last year, there was live music and we got some seriously delicious apple cider donuts and old fashioned sodas, and sat outside on hay bales as we listened to the music.
The experience was definately worth the trip.
We will go again this year.
Maybe we can create our own tradition with a new mill.
We also have to do our Thanksgiving shopping and cleaning and getting the house ready to hold a host of guests.
And there are school harvest parties to get ready for.
Next Wednesday, my cousin, Patti, and I will literally cook and bake our lives away.
Every year, on the Wednesday before the holiday, we dig into the kitchen early in the day, and emerge, splattered with sauces and floured from head to toe, only when everything we could possibly do to get ready for the next day is done, which is sometime around two-ish, three-ish in the morning.
As exhausting as it can be, there is a lot of laughing and talking and listening to music (Christmas music after midnight!) and remembering and improvising as we throw our mad culinary skills around my small kitchen. What I end up finding is that I am actually energized by all the activity, and I can barley sleep for the excitememt of it all ( I'm such a child, I know!).
And then, it will be here.
The day we have been preparing for, thinking about, dreaming of, looking forward to.
It will be here, and before we know it, it will be gone. Over.
All the guests will leave, the dishes will need to be done and left-overs put away for snacking on later.
But the memories.
The memories will live, I hope, in the hearts of my children and family and friends for many days and years to come.
And when it is my sons' turn to be the dads and the grandpas, and it is their homes family is gathering at, I hope they will remember the cider mill, and the Thanksgiving tree, and the love their mom and cousin mixed in all the recipes, and the faces of each loved one, gathered together, giving thanks to the One who is the center of it ALL.
What are some of your Thanksgivng traditions? I would love to know . . .