I'm in the same boat over here on the coast, Sal. When my mom died it all kind of landed on my sister and me. Over the last several years, it has faded more and more. Last year I crashed down at FFM's and had a blast!

This year, even my sister bailed, so it's just one brother, Jack, and me. We're having bison filets and a few bottles of wine, a salad, some good crusty bread and maybe a store-bought pie. To heck with them!

I'm sure we'll chase all that with some of Jack's pricy brandy.

I am seriously considering flying up to Chicago and spending Thanksgiving with a friend of mine. Haven't broached the subject with you-know-who yet, but he's been invited to go hunting with a buddy of his.

We shall see what kind of mood he's in after this elk hunting trip with his family after he tells them I am not spending Christmas with them this year...it's going to be an interesting holiday season - to say the least!

Going to my daughters house. She took over the holidays after I couldn't do it anymore. But it is only going to be six of us. Each year it gets smaller and smaller. My son will not be here. To far to travel and work. Hopefully he will make it for christmas. Since my husband passed the holidays are just not the same.

I had 6 little beggers!

2 cowboys
1 Indian princess
1 horse
1 football player and
1 chicken

I gotta think about Thanksgiving now!

Don't hurt yourself....doing all that thinking! I'm not thinking about it at all! LOL!

Two years ago we realized that our holidays would never be the same. Our Mom is 82, severe degenerative disc in the back, very hard to stand. My older sister has a lot of orthopedic problems, fibromyalgia is on SSD. I have MS. Our brother lives out of town, comes in Thanksgiving morning. So our kids have stepped up to the plate. The food isn't always as good but when some one else is cooking and cleaning up, you can't complain. My oldest daughter likes to take it easy. Last year her baby was one month old and she was nursing so we let it slide. This year I told her she can't get by with that. They really like the recipes we always fixed so they try to keep it the same. We have also gone to fancy paper plates.

Our youngest daughters husband is shipping out for his second tour in Iraq Jan 2 so they aren't sure if they are going to stay here for Thanksgiving or go up north to his family. They don't have the money to but want to. Our brothers son has a new job. He is at that point in his life where the older you get, the smarter your parents become. So my brother and his wife have told him that if he can't get off for Thanksgiving, they won't come so they can stay with him. So it might be a small group.