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We lived with my grandparents when I grew up, part of a huge family that treasured family time. My grandparents had seven children who proceeded with the desire to carry on the Scott name.

Thanksgiving was THE holiday for family gatherings; Christmas was for your individual family celebration. My grandmother would start cooking several days before Thanksgiving, making real mincemeat from venison for pies and tarts, making apple pies from apples she had gathered weeks before from her many acres of farmland, and washing the "good" dishes and "good" silverware. She would call around and borrow card tables that would be put into service as "kids" tables, and somehow manage to come up with enough chairs.

When the entire family was present, there were forty one of us, scattered mostly in Maine, but one of my uncles lived in Louisiana with his wife, Jeanne and her two daughters, Linda and Gretchen (another whole story) and their two sons, Clifford and Ernest. They might as well have been from France. I loved listening to their southern drawl!

On Thanksgiving morning, my grandmother would be up well before dawn to get the huge turkey stuffed and into the oven. Numerous pies lined the buffet in the dining room and the main table would already be set. By nine o'clock the aromas and the aunts would start to arrive. Tots were set in playpens to play or sleep as their mothers kept a watchful eye from across the room. All other children under the age of twelve were sent outside to play. It's strange that I remember going ice-skating every Thanksgiving morning for years; now there is never any ice then, nevermind enough to skate on. The teen girls were put to work peeling, cutting, washing or drying; the boys went out with their fathers hunting.

When we children were so cold we could no longer feel our fingers, we were allowed to come inside. Where was the hotline for abused kids then? We hung our mittens and hats over the wood stove and could hear the sizzle as drops of snow became instant steam as it dropped to the stove top. Our coats and snowpants were hung behind the stove and our boots, full of snow were laid down beside and under the stove to dry. The house was full of heavenly scents of turkey, squash, pungent boiled onions and freshly baked bread. We would think to ourselves that we hoped dinner wasn't far off. Mixers whirred as they made whipped cream, cream pies and creamy mashed potatoes, and steam rose from the stove and the sink. Laughter prevailed, especially

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