I'm not so sure history portrays the first Thanksgiving accurately at least from the viewpoint of Native Americans who would soon get the raw end of the deal in the New World after the arrival of Pilgrims.
Nonetheless, it's a holiday where - hopefully - differences are set aside and families and friends sit down together and enjoy a meal enveloped in love and peace. And that's exactly what happens in my own home annually on the last Thursday of November.
I've always loved Thanksgiving. My childhood home was the gathering spot for family that included grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. As the years passed, the dynamics of change altered things. Grandparents died; cousins married and started traditions of their own; the family eventually scattered.
Then a new generation of children came into the family and Thanksgiving Day celebrations were once again filled with love and joy.
Fast forward to 2015. My parents are gone. So is my only sibling, my brother, Larry. My youngest son, Kit, and his wife, Bonnie, live in California and alternate the years they come to Chattanooga for Thanksgiving. This was a California year.
Still, my home was filled with people on Thanksgiving Day. There was much laughter, good food and lots of love.
Over the last decade, our home has become the site for celebrating Thanksgiving. My husband, an attorney by profession but a cook by passion, is our family's official Thanksgiving chef. He makes the traditional Thanksgiving dinner, from the turkey and dressing to side dishes and pumpkin pies. I make a couple of my late Mother's Thanksgiving recipes - cranberry salad and orange/sweet potato casserole.
But it's my husband's sister and her husband, Janice and Les Herring, of Birmingham, who make the day so special. Janice has become a sister to me and I can't imagine her not in my life. At least two of her adult children and a few of her grandchildren also come for Thanksgiving. They bring a ton of love with them when they walk through the door. Janice also brings a ton of appetizers and desserts.
And, in another change, our Thanksgiving has morphed into a Christmas celebration in which we exchange gifts.
This Thanksgiving, it occurred to me that my grandchildren's experience of Thanksgiving is just as wonderful as mine was generations ago. They're surrounded by grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.
My heart melted when I saw my granddaughter, Evie, 5, trailing Les (her great uncle) everywhere. She calls him "Pops" and even saved him a place next to her at the dinner table. She adores him and the feeling is mutual.
My grandchildren's aunts and uncles took them for walks in our neighborhood and they played hide-and-seek outside and made a human pyramid. The sounds of joy and laughter echoed throughout our home the entire day.
In addition to our family, we also had friends at our Thanksgiving celebration. Patrick, 10, and the half-brother of my 3-year-old grandson William, has become an extension of our family along with his father, Heath. Patrick and William have the same mother, and our families blended with Heath after he reached out to us in hopes that his son could get to know his baby brother. We welcomed both of them into our family and now William, as well as my granddaughters Tilleigh, 8, and Evie, have bonded with the father and son.
Chirag and Kruti Tolia, of India, who now live in Atlanta, joined us this year for Thanksgiving. My daughters, Kacee and Karah, both open-water swimmers, met the couple, who lived in Chattanooga before moving to Atlanta, through swimming. The Tolias are now part of our family, too.
And, my niece, Leslie, brought along a friend from Birmingham.
So as these people gathered in my home on Thanksgiving Day, I became well aware that though the characters are different, the Thanksgiving celebrations are exactly the way they were during my own childhood, and, hopefully, will be long after I'm gone.
Contact Karen Nazor Hill at khill@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.