Without family around, there'll be no jitters

I've been eating Thanksgiving dinner in nursing homes since 1996. I don't remember the first Thanksgiving, but I know they served us turkey. That's what I had every year at my first nursing home. In addition to that, one week before Thanksgiving there was a Family Thanksgiving Dinner which featured turkey and all the trimmings. It wasn't like mom's turkey dinner, nor like mine, but it was the Thanksgiving dinner that I was grateful for.

My sister and I decided the best thing to do was to celebrate holidays before they happened – or right afterwards. That way, there was more than one Thanksgiving celebration. When my niece was younger, my sister and her family came to the Family Thanksgiving Dinner. But when my niece got to high school she was busy with school activities and could no longer come. My sister arranged for us to go out for a Thanksgiving celebration at a special or different restaurant. We didn't have turkey and all the trimmings. But we were able to spent time together.

I showed a couple of younger friends how to make a Thanksgiving or Christmas turkey dinner. In that way I could pass on my family's tradition.. But, I also thought getting together with my sister and her family near Thanksgiving allowed us to honor it too.

I went to my sister's for Thanksgiving in 1982, 2013, and 2014. It was difficult to visit her home, 50 miles away, when I lived at my first nursing home. But, I could get there for special occasions.

So, again this year, I'll spend Thanksgiving at my third facility without family present. A few residents will go out, including my roommate.

But some residents will be here all day. I will eat Thanksgiving dinner with the other residents in the dining room like I've done for the last seven years.

It'll be interesting to see what Thanksgiving's like at this rural facility, which has more visitors and I've seen in a while.

As I said in the title, I don't need to have jitters. Without family here, I have no fear of stepping on a family member's toes. But, at my house growing up, we were never concerned about that.